Post 17: 1 July, from Scott City, Kansas

Well, I do still love Kansas..... (but note the slight hesitation).

So, so empty

My affection, though, has been tested the last couple of riding days, because the wind turned against me.  Tuesday was wonderful for cycling, with an east wind pushing me along, but Wednesday and yesterday it had turned to blowing strongly (the TV Weather Channel said at speeds around 25-30mph) from the SW.

Have I said in earlier Posts that this ride isn't truly a physical challenge?  Well, perhaps I was getting complacent, because I have found the last two days tough going.  On Wednesday the wind was in my face for 45 miles, yesterday for 53, and yesterday my average speed was below 10 mph, the lowest yet on the whole trip. But when it's like that, you just concentrate on getting to the next landmark, whether it be a tree, a shed, a silo, and then to the next one, and slowly, ever so slowly, the miles pass and you do get to your destination!

It has also been hot (even "hotter than hot"!).  On Wednesday when I arrived at my motel (later than usual, at 4 pm) I was told it was 107F (42C) in the shade;  in the full sun my bike computer was reading 46C!  Yesterday it was 108F when I got here at 2 pm.  But it hasn't been humid, and the forecast for the next few days is slightly cooler.  And you can imagine how much I am enjoying a lazy rest day today. 

This far west in Kansas it really is flat, dinner-plate flat.  The terrain is a mixture of prairie grassland, huge wheat fields (with the harvest now pretty much complete), and a few (also huge) fields of growing corn, which is a lovely dark green colour.  Combine harvesters are being moved around the land, on the backs of big trucks, and when they pass you the wind turbulence certainly shifts you and your bike.  Even larger truck loads are gigantic tube structures, which I think are sections of wind turbines;  they must be at least 35 yards long, and 6-8 yards wide, so they take up a huge amount of road.  At least they are preceded by pick-up trucks warning that an "oversize load" is coming, so I know to pull right off onto the verge.

Oversize load!

As I have said before, the grain silos stand out on the horizon, visible for miles.  They are sited on the railroad, and I have been hoping - in vain - to see a train moving romantically across the prairie. Some folk say Kansas is boring to cycle through;  I disagree.  There is always something to look at and think about.  It might be a homestead miles from anywhere - what is life like for the folk who live there?;  perhaps a lone tree - how was it seeded there?

Another charming mailbox!

Most days I encounter some TransAm cyclists going east.  The convention is always to stop and chat, compare notes, etc, and sometimes photograph each other.  My spirits are always lifted when I meet such cyclists coming from the Pacific;  if they have come all this way, then it makes me believe it is really possible for me to get all the way there.  And in fact I have now completed more than 2100 miles (and climbed nearly 89,000 feet, almost three 'everests'!), so both in miles and in cycling days (and maybe in climbing too) I reckon I am past halfway.  Encouraging!

It was wonderful, a few nights ago in Sterling, to stay in a B&B with Hank and Nancy.  FIne though the motels are where I stay most nights, there is something special about being welcomed into a home.  And of course one can learn so much from ones hosts.  Hank and I talked about the sense of real and recent history one has in this part of Kansas. His and Nancy's home was built in 1889, just five years after the 'city' was incorporated.  (I must explain that 'city' doesn't necessarily denote a large population as it would in Britain; I have been through 'cities' with populations as low as 500.)  At that time Sterling was very much a frontier town, and relationships with the Indian tribes around were very uneasy.  Hank told me that the first owner of the house, who headed the 'national militia' locally, used the top floor windows as look-outs across the prairie to get early signs of danger.  (As I say, these events were relatively recent, only twice my lifetime ago!)

In those years two cultures were colliding, in sometimes violent wars:  the westward movement of traders and pioneer settlers in their wagon trains, in huge numbers threatening the lands and way of life of the tribes that had roamed the open plains for generations.  The Santa Fe Trail, connecting St Louis (Missouri) with Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico), was a prime route west.  (Traces of it remain, and I am told you can in a few places still see the ruts made by the countless wagon wheels that rolled over it....)

The cemetery at Fort Larned

Various forts were built to secure the Trail and protect traders and settlers, and one was just outside Larned, first established in 1859.  I visited it on Wednesday as I passed.  It has been superbly restored, and is now a National Historic Site.  Much larger than I expected it to be, it has nine stone buildings, providing accommodation for 100-200 men, some married quarters, even a school, all grouped around a huge parade ground.  It was only used for 20 years, for in that period various treaties had been negotiated between the government agencies and the Indians whereby they agreed to move south-westwards;  so Fort Larned fairly quickly was left behind the front line, and decommissioned.

A few of the buildings at Fort Larned

I know that my acquaintance with this epoch of American history is incredibly superficial, but it does make me wonder whether more accommodation could not have been reached with the Native Americans, so that more of their way of life could continue, and even flourish?  (For example, it took as little as 30 years for the huge herds of buffalo that roamed these plains to be virtually wiped out, by hunters like 'Buffalo Bill' who traded their skins.  I have read that it was the extermination of the buffalo that ended the Native American way of life here, far more than the Indian Wars, because they depended hugely on the giant beasts for food, skins, everything.)

Even more recent in Kansas' history were the 'Dust Bowl' years during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Drought and wind blew off the top soil, with the process exacerbated by the extent to which turf sods had been cut and dried to make bricks (for 'sod houses'), making huge dust storms;  street lights were needed in the towns at midday, and at times visibility was affected as far east as Washington DC.  An already difficult economic situation was rendered impossible for thousands of people on these plains - as chronicled in Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath" and some of Woody Guthrie's folk songs.

One other reflection I have mused on is the absence of renewable energy use here.  There seems to be enough wind in Kansas to provide large quantities electricity, through wind turbines (when the wind in my face is getting me down, I think there might be enough electricity for the whole world!).  And what about harnessing the sun's energy for solar heating or for photo-voltaic electricity generation?  I guess the mindset here is that the country has masses of oil and masses of coal, and doesn't need renewables like we do in Europe.....

Little to contribute this time to 'Nature Notes".  I haven't seen a wild mammal, or a turtle, for days, not even as roadkill.  There are a few birds to be seen, though even they are few and far between now.  A couple of days ago, though, I did see two more aerial combats, with a small bird (about the size of an English blackbird) really attacking a big bird of prey (a buzzard or something).  On the first occasion the small fellow seemed literally to be flying into the predator, and after several such hits the larger one flew off, beaten.  But the second encounter I watched seemd to end with the smaller bird going to the ground;  I didn't see it fly up, so maybe the predator had wounded it with its talons.

Fewer habitations in these parts mean fewer names to take note of..... Walking out yesterday evening to find a meal, though, I felt very put off by an eating house called "Roadkill Cafe".  Ugh....

One more place to stay in Kansas, tomorrow night, then I reach Colorado, State no 6!  Three days to a large town called Pueblo, where I shall get my bike overhauled.  Then I turn northwards and climb into the Rockies - and on 11 July Julia and Ben arrive in Denver, which I am so looking forward to!

Thanks, all of you, as always for your interest, support, and encouragement.

All best wishes, Ken