Day 24, Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Garden City, KS to Dodge City, KS
(500 feet of climbing)
51 miles, 14.8mph, 3hr 25min 52sec
Max speed 22.1mph
Up at 6:00, 6:45 load luggage, 7:00 continental breakfast at hotel: raisin bran, sweet rolls, juice and coffee, 7:15 on the road.
Nice cycling weather again, but temperature is predicted to be 102F this afternoon. We should be in before that. At about 4 miles out I came to a large bed of Brown Eyed Susans. I just had to stop for a couple of pics. They (flowers) always look so beautiful later when viewing the pics. Unfortunately sometimes when we see them along the side of the road, we have a tendency to become desensitized to their beauty. I'm always so glad later that I stopped on the ride to take the pics.
Now that we are in Kansas and the geological structure of the mountains, rushing rivers and canyons are behind us, photo opps will be more of a challenge. At 25 miles out we passed a 'feed yard' for cattle. This is the place that cattle go to fatten them up and then they go to a slaughter house. The one we saw (see pics) has the capacity of about 11,000 cattle. That's no BULL! That's BEEF! Ha! Ha!
Corn watering system explanation: the pipe coming out of the ground carries pressurized water up and out across the semicircle planting of corn. Tubes hang down from the horizontal pipe and sprinklers are located at the end of each tube. The system is connected to a timer. The whole apparatus creeps across the corn field to water the corn as it goes. At every 50 feet there are large tires that are attached to their own motor. The pipe coming out of the ground is the center of a semicircle. Imagine a car windshield washer.
It was nice to have a tail wind (25mph) today. I hope it continues all the way across Kansas. I arrived at our motel Travelodge at 11:30 AM. WOW! I never got in as early as that before. This was GOOD because the temperature rose to 102F by noontime. Tail wind or not, that's not a comfortable cycling temperature any time. Had lunch at a bar and grill. I spent the afternoon writing this journal and trying to connect to the internet via the motel Ethernet but something was wrong - too slow. Route Rap was at 5:15 followed by dinner at a Chinese Restaurant next to our motel.
At 6:45 I (and 4 other cyclists) went to Boot Hill Museum. We saw a Boot Hill gunfight and then the Long Branch Saloon Variety show. It was great! Part of the show was a sing along, during which the lead man asked me if I would like a job. At another part of the show he asked if anyone had a birthday in June and I raised my hand. He pulled me up to the stage, sat me down, said a few things and sent me back to my chair. So I left the stage, sad faced and head down. It was GREAT fun! Ya hadda be there! (see pics) Christine, ABB staff , shuttled us there and back.
Back at the motel at 9:30, finishing this journal and getting to bed hopefully before 11:00. Yeah, I did it. Tomorrow is an 85 mile ride to Great Bend. Temperature prediction again is 102F. Jay wants to get up at 4:30 to get on the road early to beat the heat.
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