Thursday, 5-19-11
This has been an interesting time in Kansas for us. We came early so we could get aclimitizede to the weather (figured to be much warmer than Oregon) and ride the Kansas roads. So far, nothing has worked out as we imagined.
First of all, the weather. Outside of the first 3 days, it's been more like Oregon than Kansas. This week, rainy and cool (in the 50's some). And the wind is always there. Yesterday we rode to Kensington again. Wind out of the east. Took 1:45 going into the wind (16.5 miles) and 1:07 coming back with the wind. Figured the wind at about 20 mph. Not many days without winds over 10 mph, and more with winds in the 15-20 mph range and gusts to 25-35. I am going to expect head winds almost every day during the ride across Kansas. Days without that will be a bonus. And, everyone says the heat will come, but we've only got about 2 weeks to make the transition to warmer, dry days. Actually, the cool is better to ride in, but 70 would be better than 50.
I, also, figured the hills would be a problem for us as we didn't have much training on anything more than "rolling" hills in Oregon. So far, we've ridden one day with some more substantial hills (last Monday when we rode to Stockton & back - just under 50 miles) than what lie just east of Phillipsburg. I am now confident that we will be able to get up and down the hills, at least in western Kansas. We may not be fast, but we will get there. I've had warnings about the hills in eastern Kansas, as they are at least steeper in general, and more of them. We'll see.
We didn't ride today (Thursday) and will not tomorrow as we will be out of town. But my sister-in-law has a ride planned for Saturday morning (meet at 6:30 am) and ride south to Hays (about 60 miles). Weather is supposed to be 10% chance of rain, 8-10 mph winds, and in the 70's. It will be a challenge for Rita and me. We have ridden the first 25 miles (to Stockton) last Monday, but there are some long hills leaving Stockton, and the next town, Plainville. This will be our second 60 mile ride since getting here, and probably the last. I think we'll be ok if we keep riding our 20 and 30 milers during the week.
We haven't done much interesting in the way of food except for the night we ate at the Kensington Legion hall. Kensington is a small enough town that there isn't a regular restaurant/cafe in town. There are 2 gas stations, and one of them serves meals. The Legion hall isn't open every night as a restaurant, but is on Fridays. So we (Rita, my mom, my brother Russ, and Russ' father-in-law, Fred) met Joan (Russ' wife) and 2 other women that rode their bikes the 15 miles from Phillipsburg to Kensington for supper at the Legion hall. Hamburgers, sandwiches, and salads are on the menu, along with some specials. That night lamb fries were a special. Feeling adventerous, I ordered the lamb fries. So did Fred, mom, and Russ. None of the others wanted to even taste the fries. They were good. Now I'm ready for calf fries or Rocky Mountain Oysters. Kind of wish we were going to be in Clayton, OK where there's a place that specializes in calf fries.
Monday, 5-23-11
Well, time to finish this. Rita, Joan, Michele, Charlene and I rode our bikes to Hays on Saturday - about 60 miles. All of us are going to ride the Bike Across Kansas in June, so this was a tune-up for that. On the preceeding Monday, Rita & I had ridden to Stockton & back. That's the first town on the way to Hays - about 23 miles. Left here at about 7 am and got to Stockton, had a short break, and headed for Plainville - about 15 miles - and another break. Left Plainville and headed to Hays - about 23 miles. (I know that doesn't add up to 60, but it's close.) About 5 miles outside Plainville Rita took a nasty spill. Broke her helmet, scraped her elbow pretty good and made everything else ache. Riding close to the edge of the pavement she ended up in the dirt to the right, and when she tried to come back on the pavement, the pavement was about 4" higher than the dirt, and her back tire kicked out and down she went. I was too close and I almost ran over her (still don't know how I missed - she kind of sprawled out in front of me), but then I went down, too, except I fell in the soft roadside dirt and was just fine. I guess a learning point of that is to fall in the soft dirt, it doesn't hurt near as much as the asphalt.
The local doctor thinks Rita had a mild concussion, nothing severe. She's feels below par and probably won't ride her bike for a few days. Hope this doesn't impact the ride in June.
The other thing going on now is all the severe weather in the midwest. Joplin, MO got hit by a tornado yesterday (up to 116 deaths so far). And so did Topeka, KS and Minneapolis, MN. Seems like every day a line of severe storms are being followed by all the local TV stations. We were in Grand Island, NE on Friday and drove through 2 patches of very heavy rain on the way home. And then on Saturday, just as we got back from the bike ride to Hays, a storm cloud NW of town blew through town about 30 minutes after we got back. Rained real hard for about 5-10 minutes. It's the kind of rain that will add up to 2+ inches if it stays around for 30-45 minutes. The most rain close to here was last week, 4+ inches about 40 miles east of here. I think we got about an inch from the same storm. Today has been pretty nice and warm. No bad weather here, at least right now.
The weather channel is showing tornado warnings in Oklahoma, Indiana and Pennsylvania for today. And strong storms a lot of places. Large hail, damaging winds and flooding. Midwest through the Ohio river valley through to the east coast. And tomorrow will be no different. Right now the death toll in Joplin is over 115. That's the most deaths for a tornado in a very long time. Hope the big ride doesn't get hit by bad weather. The ending town, LaCygne, is about 90-100 miles north of Joplin. So, bad weather on the eastern third of the ride would not be out of the question. Not much you can do if you're out in the open on your bike if something like that would happen. We'll have our cell phones and my brother Russ will be tracking our route (along with the ride organizers) and the weather. If anything happens, we should know about it in advance - we hope.
When Rita & I were in high school here there weren't any deer or turkeys around. Well, at least there weren't hunting seasons for them. But now, they're all over the place. Brother Russ came by yesterday afternoon to show us the 2 turkeys he shot just earlier - probably around 20 pounds each. He's gone out hunting a few times since we got here, this was the first time he got any shots off. Glad he got to clean them. He says most people only keep the breast meat. There's not much else on a wild turkey. The drumsticks are pretty small.
I guess that's it from storm central and the emergency room.
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