Biking Across America (13 page)

I also passed many grain mills. Pausing beside one large complex, I breathed in the smells that brought back warm memories of days I'd tag along with Dad. The familiar sounds of machinery grinding grain were sounds of home. Smells and sounds have an astonishing power to transport us to other places and times.

On the outskirts of Dodge City, a group of cowboys, swinging their lariats, came riding over a small hillock. The scene was a monument, the history and spirit of the town caught in still life. Dodge was known as the “Wickedest City in the West” during its heyday. A major hub of cattle trading, it also attracted railroad workers, buffalo hunters, soldiers, and drifters. Saloons and lawlessness were the norm. Many grudges were settled by gunfights, and a cemetery called Boot Hill was set aside to bury the deceased rascals. Lawmen were hired to police the town; the two most famous, Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, became legendary figures who helped populate Boot Hill and slowly restored order in Dodge City.

I pedaled down Wyatt Earp Boulevard, seeking shelter and relief from the heat and wind. My enterprising mind wondered why there were no windmills here; the only mills I'd seen were the feed mills, but the power of the Kansas wind could certainly generate a great deal of energy. I washed my biking shirt and shorts and then tossed the clothes over a bush outside the motel. The breezes dried them more quickly than any electric dryer ever could.

I strolled down the boulevard and up the hill behind the Boot Hill Museum to the Boot Hill Cemetery. Wooden markers on the graves noted the scoundrels' names and causes of death. Alcohol consumption was a factor in the demise of many, and shootouts seemed to be the only way of settling things in those wild days.

The cemetery did not hold me for long; my thoughts and plans were focused on the living. My friend Ivan was at his son's home in Hutchinson. Tomorrow I would ride toward Hutchinson and get as close to that goal as possible. Then Ivan would drive out to meet me and take me back to his son Eric's house for a needed break. I looked forward to good food and good conversation.

I would need an early start to get within range of Hutchinson the next day. At five o'clock in the morning, I was the first person getting out of Dodge. My feeble light cast a faint beam on the dark highway. Far off in the distance, red lights flashed. They reminded me of airport runway lights, except that I detected no air traffic. Twenty miles later, the faint morning light revealed a fantastic sight. Sixty-seven huge wind turbines slowly revolved in the Kansas breeze.

Looking like a white forest of towering trees, the Spearville Wind Energy Facility covers five thousand acres of wheat fields. The turbines reach a height of 391 feet, and each sits on an acre of land. I learned that more turbines are scheduled to be built here; this flat area of Kansas is known as the windiest area in America and could quite possibly become a leading source of wind-generated energy.

Past the turbine forest, I spotted a medieval castle. The sun was just peeping over the citadel's square towers and protective walls, outlining its turrets against the pale morning sky. As the sun rose higher and I pedaled closer, I realized it was nothing as magical as a castle, but only a group of large concrete grain silos that had been silhouetted by the early morning sun. Perhaps the Kansas heat and wind were affecting my imagination.

It was not my imagination, though, that spotted friendly faces in a pickup truck later that afternoon. I was at mile number ninety-nine for the day when the truck pulled alongside me and offered me a ride. It was my friend Ivan and his son Eric.

“Ivan, you don't really expect me to finish today one mile short of one hundred, do you?” He understood my logic, and I rode one
mile closer to Hutchinson before loading my bike into the truck and heading into town for time with friends.

I felt blessed that night, sitting at the supper table, eating the great food Fran and Karmen had prepared, and enjoying the conversation of good friends. It reminded me again that good friends are to be cherished.

The next day, Saturday, Ivan took me and my bike back to the exact spot where he had picked me up the day before. Eric and his friend Jeremy rode with me that day. We made seventy miles, reaching Newton. Then Ivan again transported us back to Eric's home.

On Sunday morning, I attended all three services at the church where Eric served on the pastoral staff. Hopefully, that made up for all the Sunday services I'd missed while on the road. I was greatly relieved to find that the pews were padded.

We spent the afternoon underground. Hutchinson gained the nickname Salt City after salt was discovered under the town in the late 1800s. Mines have been in operation ever since, and we spent the afternoon 650 feet below the city, touring one part of an underground network that extends for sixty-seven miles. At the Kansas Underground Salt Museum, an elevator took us down through the darkness; then a motorized vehicle drove us deep into the caverns. Huge columns of salt were left standing at strategic places to keep the mined area from collapsing.

In areas where mining is finished, the cavern is used as a vault. With a perpetual temperature of 68 degrees and low humidity, this cave is perfect for storing valuables. Stacks of boxes hold medical records and important documents. Hollywood stores old films, props, and memorabilia here. Even foreign countries have storage areas in this underground vault.

The day ended with pizza and watermelon and more good times with friends. The weekend had been like a midflight refueling. Weariness and loneliness, like that Kansas wind, had been
conspiring against me, making the pedaling more difficult. This respite with friends had revived me.

Still, it was with a heavy heart that I went back to my solitary ride on Monday. I felt even more keenly how very alone I was on this journey across America.

Ivan drove me back to Newton, where I had ended Saturday's ride. The stretch ahead of me now was through large farming tracts with no stores or settlements until I reached Cassoday, thirty-eight miles away. A gentleman I'd spoken with the previous day had told me that I was heading into an area that even God didn't know existed. It was a lonely ride, but I passed several churches and surmised that God did know about this area after all.

The very small town of Cassoday proclaims itself the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World. With less than two hundred residents, it may well have more prairie chickens than people. I did find a small grocery store, and I took a short break before pressing on.

I now traveled on the back side of beyond, along miles and miles of cornfields. Scattered farm buildings gave evidence of human presence, but I didn't see much more than fields, a few horses, and the oil pumps that nodded their greetings as I pedaled by. A few gentle hills foretold the end of this state's flat terrain, but the ferocious Kansas wind still opposed my progress.

My stop that night was in the small village of Eureka. My bike had now rolled through three towns with this name, one in California, another in the middle of the Nevada desert, and now this in the eastern part of Kansas. Another thirty-five dollars was well spent; I had arrived in town just ahead of a thunderstorm.

I was more than ready to leave Kansas, but still had a long day's ride to the Missouri line. Leaving early in the morning, I fought my
way toward the border. A nasty wind from the northeast slowed my progress and black clouds chased me. Twenty miles later, still ahead of the rain, I stopped for refreshment and information at a small, rundown café named Lizard Lips.

Here my route turned southward and the wind lessened. The rain, however, finally caught up with me. Fortunately, it was only a light drizzle, and I went through several wash-and-dry cycles throughout the morning as I rode through little prairie towns named Toronto, Coyville, Benedict, Chanute, and Walnut. My goal was Girard, the first town that seemed large enough to have a motel.

At eight o'clock I arrived in Girard as a brilliant red sun slid toward the western horizon. But I was dismayed to find that this town of several thousand people had no motel, and so my day was not yet finished.

Fifteen miles southeast was Pittsburg, Kansas. I had no choice but to go on. I had come into Girard on Route 47. In town, Route 7 turned south toward Pittsburg, but before I reached that intersection, my tired brain stopped working. I rode right past the turnoff for Route 7 and continued east on 47.

Soon daylight was completely gone; the sky was still cloudy and I had only an occasional glimpse of the moon. In the darkness, I suddenly felt the road surface change. A road crew had cut grooves in preparation for repaving. I bumped along, my bicycle shaking and rattling so much that I feared a blowout. Finally I dismounted and pushed, hoping this stretch would soon end.

For the next four miles, I pushed through the darkness. Vehicles blew past me, raising clouds of dust. It had been a day of misery, and my spirits were almost as low as they had been on that long night in Utah.

A truck came out of the darkness and pulled up beside me. The driver rolled down his window.

“I just passed you, going the other direction, and something told me I should stop. Do you need help?” His headlights had picked up the sight of a tired man pushing a bike, and he assumed I had a flat tire.

“I'm just trying to get past this miserable stretch of road,” I said.

“I'd be glad to give you a ride.”

It was a most tempting offer.

“I can't. I'm on a cross-country bike ride, and I have to ride or push every mile. But tell me—how far am I from Route 126?” Route 126 was the turnoff from Route 7 that would take me to Pittsburg.

“You're nowhere near 126.”

“I thought if I took Route 7 from Girard, then took a left on 126, it would take me to Pittsburg.”

“But you aren't on Route 7. You're on Route 47.”

In the dark night, I was headed in the wrong direction. If God had not sent that gentleman into my life, I would have turned left at the next road crossing and pedaled off into the unknown darkness, north instead of south, most likely ending up in Nebraska or Iowa.

The kind driver gave me directions to Pittsburg. The lights of the town finally came into sight, and a yellow glow from golden arches signaled civilization was near. I had biked 124 miles in fifteen hours. Day forty-six ended at last.

The elements in Kansas had been most unfriendly, but the people of the Sunflower State had been more hospitable than any other state I'd traveled through. Some stores keep autograph books for bikers to sign. Clerks offer to fill water bottles with ice. And some folks stop on a dark night to offer help to weary strangers.

__________________

*
Dale Carnegie,
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 10.

I
was riding down Broadway, searching for Route 126. This would be my road into Missouri, and I knew that here in Pittsburg it ran concurrently with East 4th Street. Only a few more miles, and I'd cross another state line.

Once I found my route, I pedaled only a few miles and entered Missouri. During my last days in eastern Kansas, I had been plagued by a headwind. Now I realized that Kansas was not entirely responsible for those troubles; the stiff breezes originated in Missouri.

I was on a small, paved county road that ran through farming country. Large corn and soybean fields bordered my route. Farmers were cutting corn and filling grain bins. Unlike Kansas, where vast concrete silos loomed over the landscape, Missouri farmers had round metal storage bins in a variety of sizes. I stopped several times that morning to admire beautiful farm scenes. At one farm, I watched as silage was unloaded by large augers that emptied into the tops of the shiny bins. The morning sun glinted off the metal
walls as the workers hurried about their activities, quite unaware that a solitary biker looked on from a distance.

I was looking ahead with great anticipation to the small town of Golden City, thirty-six miles down the road. The grapevine raved about Cooky's Café, a restaurant on the main thoroughfare through Golden City. “You have to try their pies,” folks had advised me.

Cooky's turned out to be a mom-and-pop operation filled with local farmers and ranchers. A glass case held mouthwatering pies. Apple, peach, and cherry double-crust pies looked delectable. Tins filled to overflowing with cream pies made my choice difficult. I stalled.

The meatloaf dinner was great and the coleslaw perfect. Finally, it was time for pie. I had narrowed it down to two contenders. The coconut cream tempted me with its golden, toasted coconut. But there was one pie that I was compelled to taste, a masterpiece called chocolate pecan, combining the tastes of two of my favorite pies. The dessert was as delicious as the name promised. It also reminded me of the bumpy road surface I had traveled somewhere back in Colorado.

At the center of Golden City, the county road intersected with Route 160. This new route would take me to my evening's destination of Springfield, Missouri. From Springfield, I would take Route 60 across Missouri and through the Ozark Mountains. I knew these mountains would be nothing like the mountains I'd already climbed, but the terrain was already rolling and I once again enjoyed the thrill of reaching 30 mph on downhills.

Shortly after six o'clock, I arrived at the western edge of Springfield and stopped at a new Baymont Inn. The front desk clerk was sneaking a smoke break beside the main entrance; she apologized profusely when I coasted up, explaining that the hotel had just opened and things were still quite stressful. I assured her she could take her time and proceeded to tell her about my ninety-five-mile ride through Missouri that day.

“This place looks quite fancy, probably too pricey for me,” I observed.

“Come inside,” she said. “You were so considerate about my smoke break, I'll give you every deal possible.” She offered me the company's lowest corporate rate, and I had a night of upscale lodging.

The money I saved on lodging, though, was quickly spent on food; I called a nearby restaurant and ordered a steak dinner delivered to my room. Missouri was getting quite hilly, after all, and I needed rest and plenty of nourishment.

Springfield is the third largest city in Missouri, and I was just another traveler in the morning rush hour traffic. Finally, after fifteen miles of harrowing maneuvers past on- and off-ramps and through construction, I arrived on the eastern side of Springfield. The roadsides were again decked with wildflowers bobbing in the breeze. I was now in hilly territory, and in some places the highway had been cut through the hillside and cliffs, leaving rocky walls hugging the road.

In Seymour, Highway 60 changed. Two lanes expanded to four, and on the shoulders I noticed a familiar pattern. Grooves worn by many hooves and telltale trails of buggy wheels told me I was in Amish country. Serenity soaked through me. I could almost imagine I was home, taking a bike ride in my own community.

One thing was quite unlike home, though. My daydreams were soon interrupted by a piercing whistle. On the railroad track parallel to the road, a long train with multiple engines rumbled toward me. I paused to absorb the fierce rumblings and roars of five monstrous iron horses as they roared by. The train stretched out toward the horizon. I counted all 135 loaded coal cars as they passed. Four modes of transportation ran side by side here: bicycles, buggies, cars, and trains had all been tested by time and were all still viable.

The train passed and I resumed my toil against the wind. After seventy-five hard miles I arrived at the intersection of Routes 60 and 95 in Mountain Grove. In the distance, a sign announced Schrock's Motel and Restaurant; I headed toward both a room to sleep in and the potential for good food and good conversation.

I had enjoyed the changing landscape on this second day in Missouri. Scenic vistas of rocks and hills and wooded areas seemed even more beautiful after my stint in the flat farmlands of Kansas. Several times during the day I had pulled off the road to take in the scenes at lumberyards, admiring the rows of sawed planks and breathing in the smells of sawdust and new lumber.

This area seemed more heavily populated with churches. Many had signs out front with humorous phrases containing some nugget of truth. In Cedar Gap, I noticed one sign that said, “God expects spiritual fruits, not religious nuts.”

Other signs posted in fields carried an angrier tone. Apparently the Missouri Department of Transportation had upset folks in this area. I didn't know what the disagreement was, but dozens of homemade signs denigrated MoDOT.

By midmorning the next day I needed a soft drink break. In the distance, a canopy covering many gas pumps appeared to be the site of a large truck stop. I wheeled in; the sign said OPEN but the place looked abandoned. Coasting past the twenty gas pumps, I saw they all had been shut off. The building itself was in disarray. I wandered inside and was met by an older gentleman.

“Everything is for sale here,” he said. “I'm going out of business.” I made a sympathetic comment about the economy hurting so many people. “It wasn't the economy that killed my business, it was MoDOT.”

That statement got my attention.

“I've seen signs scattered everywhere attacking MoDOT,” I replied. “What did they do to upset the local population?”

“Several years ago, they put this four-lane highway in and made it limited access. That cut my traffic in half; anyone going in the other direction can no longer stop here. Other businesses were also affected. Several farmers no longer had access to some of their fields. I fought MoDOT in court for years and ran up several hundred thousand dollars in legal bills. It turned into a vendetta for MoDOT officials; they just dug in their heels and refused to cooperate.”

The court finally gave the man the right to construct an access road so that both lanes of traffic could get to his business, but he had to build the road himself. That construction cost him a quarter million dollars, and that cost plus the legal bills he had piled up proved to be too much of a burden.

“My family ran this place for generations. We used to employ twenty-five people. A tornado leveled the business one time, but we rebuilt. I have always been a survivor, but this MoDOT fight wiped me out.”

There was also a final injury. After all the damages MoDOT had inflicted on the local economy, they were now threatening legal action against folks for the insulting signs.

That afternoon, farther down the road, I witnessed another sad picture of America's current economy. I was waiting in line to pay for snacks. A man was speaking with the clerk, and I could hear the desperation in his voice.

“What's happening with my job application?”

“Sorry,” came the reply. “We're not hiring right now.”

“I have to find a job. I just have to find work.” His voice choked and I saw the tears in his eyes as he turned and walked out.

A person needs a purpose in life, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I had seen it time and again on this ride through America: people were desperate for work.

My home community has been more fortunate than many other places during economic downturns. Unemployment is low. God
has blessed us with many resources. Yes, there are folks who readily turn your little molehill into a mountain, but there are just as many who will come to your aid should trouble befall you. Many helpless, hopeless folks out there in America have no place to turn in their times of desperation. Friends, we need to thank God daily for all the blessings he has given us.

Van Buren was still fifteen miles away and the afternoon was fading. I needed one more break. While guzzling a can of Mountain Dew, I was approached by a man who entered and seemed to recognize me.

“Hey, I just passed you out on the highway. Where are you heading?”

“I hope to end up in Key West, Florida, in about a month, but tonight I'll be in Van Buren. Do you know of a good place to eat there?”

He did have a recommendation. All of his life, Dave had been a customer of a restaurant called the Float Stream and, since it was Friday, the eatery would be having a seafood buffet. I pedaled toward Van Buren with a sense of urgency, thinking of that seafood buffet.

I checked into the Hawthorne Hotel in downtown Van Buren. It was a 1950s horseshoe-shaped motel with a swimming pool anchoring the center courtyard. The place was rundown and inexpensive, but it was home for the night.

A short walk down the street brought me to the Float Stream restaurant, on the banks of the Current River and across the street from the Carter County courthouse. Paddlers use the area for access to the river. The Current is fed by the Big Spring, one of the world's largest free-flowing springs. It spews an average of 286 million gallons of fresh water a day into the river, and the flow has been measured as high as 1.3 billion gallons a day. The Current River then flows into the Black River, which in turn flows into the Mississippi. Perhaps instead of trying to squeeze sixteen billion
extra gallons of water from the desert, Las Vegas should start negotiating with the good folks of Missouri.

The seafood met and exceeded my expectations. Fried fish, shrimp, scallops, and all manner of sea critters filled the buffet. I tasted fried okra for the first time in my life. The salad bar was fresh and the coleslaw was done right.

As usual, I enjoyed talking to people I met. When my server discovered I was riding to Key West, she explained that her boyfriend's dad had just been buried last week. He was from Van Buren, but had been a scientist working in Key West. Cancer had claimed him at age forty-nine. I told her about my own loss to cancer, and the peace and healing I had found while hiking the Appalachian Trail.

The owner of the Float Stream stopped by my table to tell me she had been looking for me. Dave had eaten there earlier in the evening and had told her about meeting me. I complimented her on a well-run restaurant and told her about my own experience in food service.

My bike ride could easily have ended in Van Buren. She offered me a job; or, if I'd prefer, she would even have sold me the restaurant. I considered it for a fraction of a second before declining. I was, however, reminded that what I missed most about food service was the people.

While I was talking with the owner, a man sat down at the next table and she introduced him to me as the mayor of Van Buren. The best thing that came of our conversation was his recommendation that I stop at the local ice cream shop on my way back to the Hawthorne Hotel. “They have the best ice cream around,” he said.

The ice cream shop was a small, nondescript building with a large canopy covering a number of picnic tables. I joined a long line and ordered a chocolate sundae with chocolate syrup. While savoring my rich chocolate cup of calories, I took in the scene. Close to fifty adults and children sat at the picnic tables, enjoying
their food and conversation. Kids ran from table to table, interacting with friends.