Thursday, July 16, 2009
Day 31: Hutchinson, KS to Dodge City, KS
When travling to Pueblo from Hutchinson, most cyclists take the recommended route through Nickerson and Larned. We decided that route looked a little too sparsely populated and instead decided to follow US-50 straight west. We left Hutchinson without a hotel reservation, so we could be flexible on the distance. If possible, we'd try to make it to Kinsley, KS.
Before leaving town, we stopped somewhere that most people would think of as a Turkey Hill.
There were actually a number of gas stations across the country that used the Turkey Hill logo, and even sold Turkey Hill products, but did not call themselves Turkey Hill. This all made Jillian think of home.
About twelve miles down the road we made another stop at a gas station. It was necessarily that we always had to stop, it was just that you used every stop you found, since you never knew if the next one was going to be five miles away or fifty miles away. Like most Kansan gas stations, the staff was very friendly and loved to chat with us about our trip.
We rode on, under a vast... nothing.
Once again we found ourselves caught up in some weird weather that afternoon. Without any warning, the wind suddenly picked up and we started wondering if it was going to rain. Fortunately, we found a rest stop quickly and got off the road to call my mother. She gave us a weather report, which actually looked surprisingly good. After waiting for the wind to die down a bit, we got back on the road.
To keep our minds occupied, we started playing what we called The Horizon Game. In this game, when we crest a little hill we pick something in the distance and both try to guess how far away it is. I got to be pretty good at it, since you could use grain elevators to estimate distance fairly well.
US-50 turned out to be a great ride. After leaving the rest stop the wind switched to a tail wind, and we started moving quickly down the highway. The road had a beautiful 8 foot shoulder with rumble strips carefully positioned next to the white line. This is a lot better than a state like Pennsylvania, which might have rumble strips that stretch across the entire shoulder. There were even towns at regular distances on 50, giving us places to stop for cold drinks.
Around mile 90 we arrived in Kinsley, which bills itself as the midway point between New York and San Francisco.
Kinsley was deserted. We rode all through town looking for somewhere to get dinner, but everything was closed. We decided to instead just find a bathroom, but we missed the library being open by less than ten minutes (having passed by it once while it was open, but not thinking to stop then). We ended up stopping at a grocery store, where the clerks were debating who'd done the craziest thing. It appears that the local past time is driving to the next town over and streaking down main street. They were confused when I said I was currently in the process of doing the craziest thing I'd ever done.
We rode to the west side of town to check out the only hotel. It was positioned between the highway and some train tracks, and looked a little too sketchy even for us. We debated stopping for a few moments, but decided to ride on to Dodge City, which we assumed would have many tourist oriented hotels. We rode the 35 miles to Dodge City in less than two hours, including stops. The tail wind seemed to effortlessly push us across the Kansas plains. We arrived in Dodge City just as the sun was starting to go down, and pulled into our favorite place in the world: La Quinta.
Unfortunately, there weren't any rooms avaialable for us on the first floor. We inquired about the elevator, but when the clerk saw our bicycle she took pity on us. Instead, we were upgraded from a standard king to an executive king. We love La Quinta.
Of course, we'd gotten in too late to really enjoy the La Quinta, but still. Good water pressure, clean rooms, reasonable rates (though Dodge City is over priced, as it is a tourist town). We went next door to a steak house for dinner then crashed, super excited about having done more than 130 miles in one day, and not even feeling that tired at the end of it. The weather forecast was calling for no real change in the weather, and with tail winds like that we were optimistic we could make Pueblo in another three days. This was important, too. The clanging noise was getting worse, and we had recently reached a point where we didn't feel comfortable coasting on the bike at all. That meant we pedaled non stop on the bike, never taking a break except when we pulled over.
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