Geysers and Wind

 

Sunday, September 15, Latkin, Kansas. The day started early, way too early. At about 1:30 am I wedged myself out of my tent and made the trek to the Wellness Center, whose back door had been propped open for us to us the bathrooms. When I got there the door was locked. This wasn’t a complete disaster, as I being male, knew what to do. About 20 minutes after returning to my tent I awoke to the patter of raindrops on my tent’s rainfly. I quickly closed the rain fly opening, as I had left it open for circulation. I returned to sleep. About 30 minutes later, I awoken by what sounded like a geyser shooting water onto my tent. “My can it rain here, and quickly, too,” I thought. Water quickly pooled in the vestibule where my head goes and where I had stashed a sack of clean clothes, which quickly got wet. I retreated further down into the tent to the areas still dry. Then I noticed a curious thing. It was only “raining” on the front and right side of my tent. Now I realized it wasn’t rain at all, but the college’s sprinkler system. Our entire camp was in chaos, as most of the tents got doused. Bill, one of our amazing 76-year-olds, dragged a cart from a nearby maintenance yard and capped one of the fountains.

By morning we couldn’t wait get the hell out of Lamar. The city seemed cursed. After a quick breakfast we were on the road by 7:40 am, following Highway 191 east. Today, the wind was blowing from the north, northeast, not good. It was a crosswind, but did us more harm than good. The blue skies of the early morning quickly turned gray.

We passed a bunch of lamas, and were chased by dogs, a big one and a little one. The landscape was flat, though cultivated in areas with corn and some other crops I couldn’t identify. The land was flat with occasional gentle hills. At the small town of Hartman we stopped for Russ, as Hartman is his last name. He had never heard of Hartman, Co., before, population 122, but decided it was worthwhile to check it out as long as we were there. We toured the cemetery, but found no Hartmans. “Apparently, they were smart enough to leave,” quipped Russ. The cemetery was the best, most maintained part of the town. Steve and Russ pulled into a park-like area, with a “welcome to Hartman” sign. This is where Steve incurred his first flat of the trip. He quickly changed the tire, as I snapped a picture of Russ beaming with the Hartman sign and water tower in the background. Dogs barked. Someone started a chainsaw. We saw no Hartmanians. “Look,” I said. “If we come to the towns of Rice and Goldstein we are not stopping again. Every time, we do something out of the way something bad happens to one of our bikes.”

At 11 am we rolled into the side yard of United Methodist Church, where parishioners had prepared us lunch. Egg salad sandwiches, fruit and cookies never tasted so good.

 

The church volunteers have been doing this annually for the Santa Fe Trail ride for many years. We reluctantly left about 45 minutes later, facing an increasingly pesky head wind. The rest of the day was truly a struggle. We entered Kansas, but it made no difference with the wind. Our pace slowed, though we pushed to stay at speeds of 10 to 12 miles per hour. The lone highlight was the generous shoulder provided by Highway 50. Large farm trucks heading to the stockyards screamed past, coating us in a rain of corn husks. When we rested biting flies feasted on us. The skies turned grayer and the temperature dropped. I was starting to think of the opening scenes of the Wizard Oz. To make matters worse, we also lost an hour as we entered the Central Time Zone near Kendall.

 

For nearly 50 miles we battled the wind and climbed up and down gentle hills. Russ went ahead, but Steve, Bill, who joined our little group, and I straggled into Latkin, where we have pitched our tents for the evening. At least we weren’t in Lamar anymore and the volunteer ladies who prepared us an excellent spaghetti dinner in the school gym assured the sprinkler system had been turned off. Unfortunately, someone forgot the turn on the hot water, so we screamed through cold showers before bed.

Statistics: Mileage 88. Too tired to think of more.