The Day of the Locust

Council Grove, September 21, 2013. Saturday. We continued to blaze our way east across Kansas. It was a perfect morning, no wind, which is probably unusual for these parts. Russ rejoined us in the morning, his bike repaired in Wichita last afternoon. The Sea-Brem team is back at full strength.

Tabor College doesn’t do breakfast so the three us bought donuts, coffee and some other goodies at a bakery on Hillsboro’s Main Street, which was lined with festival vendors. Today is the annual arts and crafts show, which will swell the city’s population by about 400%. I hope they can handle it. Parking off Main Street was going for $5 a car.

The early morning sun casts long shadows.

 

 

A Kansas moment.

It was a perfect morning for a ride. The fatigue of last night, helped by a robust sleep, was chased away by the crisp morning sun. We cut north on a country road across gently rolling fields of corn, milo and soybeans. At a bridge spanning Marion Reservoir, I asked a couple of fishermen in a skiff if they had caught anything. The news wasn’t good. One guy said they were after “swipers” and bass. The latter I know, but I had never heard of a swiper before and neither had my friends. A field of giant sunflowers passed, which more or less, was the quintessential Kansas moment.

The Meat Locker, where meat is your best friend!

A little more than half way we came to the little town of Burdick, whose welcome sign declared it was still growing. Well, if Burdick is still growing, so am I. The only viable business left in town was the Burdick Meat Locker, a butcher’s shop, where Mike the Butcher made us some sandwiches. The rest of the business district, such as it was, consisted of wood-framed building ready to collapse. I couldn’t help but wonder how these places could continue to exist.

Onward, as the afternoon grew hot. I got hit in the chest with a locust going full speed. For a few seconds, there was a struggle as the locust clawed onto my t-shirt. I didn’t know what the hell the thing was. All I saw was a bunch of segmented legs, bulbous eyes, and four inches of scaly body. I thought a dinosaur had landed on me. I finally managed to swat the monster off. Locusts continued to bounce off me throughout the afternoon, though once I took a dragonfly on the neck. Since swallowing a bug whole a couple of days ago I now keep my mouth shut as I ride, though I imagine bug protein isn’t all that bad. The trick is to swallow them whole and don't think about it.

We pulled into Council Grove at about 3:30 pm, ready for our layover day. Dinner was at the historic

Hays House, which has been in continuous operation as a tavern since the days of the Santa Fe Trail. They fed us well in a private dining room.

We are camped in a city park. Now, Steve and I are trying to finish our blogs on a couple of park benches in the dark, while mosquitoes dive bomb the computer screen and us.

The stars are coming out. The cicadas are going nuts. A bat just flew by. Crickets are jumping into my tent. And later, the howl of coyotes is heard in the wood that border our camp.

Stats: Miles 67. We are now more than two-thirds of the way to the end.