Colleen's Journal: Week Seven

I really like the midwest.  Which is probably a good thing, given that it takes up a lot of space and we'll probably spend more time biking it than any other component of the country.  Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri were all very pleasant, generally very friendly and hospitable, with easy terrain and cheap food and lodging.  The sights aren't amazingly exciting, it's sometimes too far between towns to suit our tastes, there's not a lot of history or diversity to stimulate the mind, but this is more than made up for by the fact that for the most part, it's pretty country and we meet plenty of kind people.

Today we passed into Kansas.  I had enjoyed Missouri, with its tailwinds and cool weather, but as usual, I'm not sorry to leave a state behind: it's one more milestone of "we really are crossing the country."  And you have to admit, it sounds pretty impressive at this point to say, "We biked from Maine these past six weeks."  We're not out to break records or anything, but it's a decent distance.  In a couple of days, we'll hit 2000 miles.

The day started well, and interestingly, we started passing rivers swollen past bursting and fields bogged into mud.  Whoa!  When did this happen?  It had obviously rained during the night, but it couldn't have been that much, could it?  Much as I complain about a really hot day, I have to admit, it would be worse trying to bike in whatever could create a marsh across the landscape.  Thankfully, it didn't seem to be cultivated fields that were flooded.  Which brings to mind a question: what is Missouri's economy based on?  They weren't utilizing the land the way the previous three states have, where every field you pass is choked with corn or soybeans.  Here, if there were any, they were sparser, clearly not cared for in such an organized (mechanized) fashion, and much smaller.  Sometimes we'd pass cows, but they were small herds, certainly not enough to be providing significant milk or beef.  (We've been told that a farm of under 1000 acres isn't likely to be profitable seemed to be left to grow wild.  Pretty, but hardly the stuff to kickstart an economy.  I wonder how much of the state is supported by trade & taxes in St. Louis?

St. Joseph's was a bit of a rude shock, after all the pleasantry we'd crossed through.  It was very clear what the economy was like there - blue collar work, stockyards and docks and it seemed to be a railroad yard - and also how well the economy was flourishing: not.  We really needed food, having biked over 20 miles without substantial breakfast, and were standing on the side of the road, flummoxed, when a cop pulled up and handily directed us downtown.  What he didn't tell us was that downtown was three miles out of our way and that the road we'd take would pass through an extremely depressed region first.  It's the first time I've felt scared, biking through a region.  It was all boarded up businesses, junk by the side of the road, people slouching along as they walked.  It had an air of hopelessness clinging to it, that no breeze or rain could wash away.  Lunch, when we finally found some, was substandard fare, and we booked it back out of the city as quickly as we could afterwards, braving the interstate rather than traversing the depressing route again.

I don't know if it was lingering depression from the town, the fact that the sun had come out while we were lunching and it was now stiflingly hot again, or something else, but I found I was biking very poorly afterwards.  More complaints from my butt, which had been doing fairly well before that.  Argh!  We've found that on even the best of maps (AAA at this point), it's impossible to gauge the size of towns beforehand, let alone possible services they'll offer. Town size as marked on a map can be dangerously misleading, and when one needs to stop for a break, it can be a real downer when a town turns out to not exist.  "Rushville," as far as I could tell, consisted of a grain elevator.  But we made it on til the border of the state, where we were able to fortify ourselves, and then up over the Missouri River into Atchison, KS.

This was one of the times when I wish we could do this in a more leisurely fashion - take as long as we want, instead of aiming for a specific place at a specific time. I would have loved to stop in at the railroad museum in Atchison.  We were also being passed by lots of trains, huge long things of all-identical cars, 120 to 140 of them.  Dang, that's an efficient pull-to-weight ratio!  I find that I'm becoming more and more fascinated with railroads since starting this trip.  (More interested in the trucking industry too, actually.)  Ever since we plotted through it, and on to Topeka, I've had old musicals running through my head. :)  And new musicals.  "The Atchison, Topeka, and the Sante Fe" automatically leads me to the two songs I know of in recent musicals naming Sante Fe.  Just for a peek into what I sing aloud whilst I bike.  Musicals and folk songs are a good way to accompany yourself; they make for better singing than pop songs, and much as I love electronica, it's pretty useless for traveling-all-day-entertaining-yourself material.  Speaking of folk songs, I should mention that Falcon Ridge Folk Festival is currently going on.  Don't think I forgot about it, kids.  There's a quiet little part of me still stunned that I'm not there - the single fixture in my life that I thought nothing could make me miss.  I guess biking across America is about as good an excuse as you could come up with, but still, it's a hard thing to give up.

By a few miles into Kansas, the butt pain was becoming unbearable, and meanwhile I was frustrated by my lack of ability to perform (see two paragraphs meanwhile I was frustrated by my lack of ability to perform (see two paragraphs back, before a long digression).  What gave?  I had felt so strong the last couple of days, and here I was, slogging along at 11 mph!  I complained to Molly and we tried to suss out the source of the renewed butt pain, but there just wasn't anything else to blame it on.  And then, as she often does, she hauled out her Big Comprehensive Brain Chock Full O' Useful Knowledge and explained that I should back off on the struggle to bike faster.  I had said I was pushing myself at about 80% effort, and she said that it was recommended that one not push harder than about 70%.  I know that sounds kinda vague, but believe me, once you're even vaguely familiar with your body and its limits, you'll know where you are within them.  So I eased off, thinking, fine, I'll only go 9 mph or so - and instead, soon jumped back up to my previous level of performance.  Along with the butt pain ebbing down.  So.  Happy me.

Kansas, for the little bit we've seen so far, is quite nice.  I expect you know little more about it than that it has tornadoes and everyone abandoned it in the 30's Dust Bowl phenomenon.  We're told that western Kansas is much drier (god I hope so, tonight it's godawful sticky) and very windy, predominantly against us, but eastern Kansas is very pretty.  And the roads set an example, thus far, that I wish all the other states would come and stare at in amazement and then go home, inspired, to replicate.  We're on a 2-laner and it has a 2 foot shoulder and is in marvelous condition.  This gives me great hope for the larger roads we'll take.  Meanwhile, it's more clear what Kansas's economy rests on - soy and corn have resumed, though on strangely bumpy hills.  And it's obvious that, even without the recent flooding, this wouldn't be a dry region.  We've encountered more crushed turtles here than everywhere else put together.  Granted, they probably decompose slower, hence they accumulate, but still...

Tomorrow is a rest day, once we make it into Topeka.  And I'm pretty psyched that I don't really need it physically.  I could go on, fine.  We're making good time (mileage in the high-60's to mid-70's), building strength and confidence, and enjoying seeing the country.  And while part of me is intimidated by the notion that we're only a state away from Colorado, part of me is excited.

Technically, this was a rest day.  But while it might be very pleasant to rest in Valley Falls, it wouldn't be very efficacious, and more to the point, wouldn't allow us to go to a movie!  You'd be amazed how much you miss strange little anchors to real life.  Not news, not your own bed, not the entire rhythm of the day, of work you enjoy and evenings spent around town - but little things.  Like being entertained on a big scale.  So we biked into Topeka.  Twenty-five miles there and another ten around town, but we can subtract some of that from tomorrow's ride, so it's still a bit of a rest.

We behaved ourselves.  Our priorities were still things like a bike shop, laundry, and picking up some harder-to-find supplies.  At the bike shop, I discussed my ongoing problem with the very friendly and knowledgeable staff and, after scratching their heads - because to them, same as to me, there really shouldn't be a problem - they suggested some readjustments on my cleats.  We'll see if that takes the knee pain down a notch or two.  The brace keeps it under control, and the aloe keeps the rash from the brace under control, but it's really not a sterling solution, so I hope the cleat adjustment will help.  This won't likely clear up the butt woes, sadly.  But I did get some real Chamois Butt'r, and we'll see if that works better than the three different kinds of butt-lube I'm currently using (including aloe, to keep the rash under control).  Molly got several other things, including a nifty new odometer that includes an altimeter, so we can be all self-congratulatory when we cross the Rockies next state over.

Then we sleuthed out a place to do real laundry (as there isn't one at our hotel), a movie theater, a post office, an outfitter, and some real food.  The laundromat was crucial.  All of our clothes smelled like fermenting half-digested grass.  The movie was Moulin Rouge at a second-run theater, for which we paid $3.50.  For both of us.  I loved it.  Did I mention I'm a musicals nut?  I'd go so far as to say "aficionado," except that it sounds pretentious and I'm not supposed to know big words like that anyway.  I did some more calculations regarding timing, and I'm still pleased at the outcome - it looks like we can bike hard across Kansas and then take it easier in Colorado and Utah.

It was godawful insanely hot out today.  96 or so.  And I suspect it'll be as hot tomorrow.  This is worrisome.  We walk outside of our hotel room and within a could of minutes are sheened with sweat.  This works great for photo ops as a swimsuit models or somesuch, but not so great for intrepid bikerchicks.  The info we have indicates that this is hotter than normal, so I sincerely hope we get another break soon.

Other than that, I'm really diggin' on Kansas.  It's pretty, gentle hills - but enough that I know I'm keeping my ascending-hills-muscles alive - cheap, fabulous roads, very nice people.  We caught our first glimpses of the stratigraphy that will become increasingly fascinating as we go, where a hillside had been chopped away for a US route, as we joined it.  It's also suddenly drier today.  You couldn't prove that by the quantity of dew that had fallen last night - good GOD, I have never seen anything like it; it was as if it had rained! - but the marshes lining the roads are abruptly gone, and the grass is much drier.  I'm also heartened by the fact that so far, Kansas seems more populated than Missouri.  That may be purely a factor of the route, but it seems much more like there's something between the towns here, which didn't exist in Missouri and Illinois anyway, even though they were marked on the map.  I don't know if the population will last, but it makes me less nervous to know that at the very least, we can knock on a farmhouse door and ask for water.

Oh god.

We got a really late start to the day.  Based on how bad an experience that was, I think we'll avoid that course in the future, like, tomorrow.  If any of you are following ludicrously closely along with maps and such, you'll know that we didn't go particularly far today - about forty-five miles, fourteen short of our goal of Manhattan.  But I just couldn't make it.

Now, given how exceedingly butch I've become of late, I'm sure you're all wondering "what in the world could give Colleen pause at this point?  Is it her knees? her butt? being mobbed by autograph-seeking fans?"  No, no.  I scoff at such minor obstacles.  I crumble only under the 100-degree heat we suffered all day.  And only then after running out of water three or four miles before we filled up.

Now, we could have started much earlier, but I needed a chiropractic appointment, given that much neck has been charted at a 7 on the scale of rock-hardness (1 is talc, 10 is diamond) for the last few days, and hurting commensurately.  I massaged it for two hours last night to no avail, and said, this is idiotic; there must be something else wrong.  So I traipsed down the road to the chiro's at 9:30, heard every single bone in my back pop about nine times, returned to package up some extraneous weight and mail it off, and then discovered that I'd worn a hole in my bike shorts.  Not a good state of affairs for someone already having chafing issues.  Fortunately, we were still across the street from the awesome bike shop of yesterday, so it was an easily remedied problem, but all in all, we didn't get out of town until noonish.

Fifteen miles out, we were taking a corn break (with all that encompasses), and a guy pulled up and offered us water, which is the second-best thing you can give two bikerchicks in absolutely killer heat, and then followed it up with tons of information, which is the best.  He told us all about the road ahead, all the way through Kansas, and then did himself one better by knowing all about Colorado too.  He inquired about our route, then suggested we take a totally different one: instead of staying to the south, utilizing Route 50, which follows a riverbed and a railroad track (hence is a gentle climb) but which has little shoulder in little twisty mountain roads, stay to the north, where there's a paved bike path paralleling I-70, build on an old railroad track, with about a three percent grade.  Oooooh.   We called people on the Touring Cyclists Hospitality Directory in Colorado to confirm this - once again, that thing is worth more than its weight in gold, uranium, or government secrets - and made our choice.  So we're re-routing, as usual (it happens at least twice a week), and hoping that the info is good.

And then it was back off through the heat.  Now, if you've got to deal with 100-degree weather, you might as well have a totally completely flat ride and a stiff tailwind, which apparently we'd thought ahead to order, because we had them both.  The wind was of the best kind, somewhat behind us and somewhat across us, so it cooled us, too; even oncoming trucks, today, weren't unwelcome.  The land really was the flattest we've encountered on his whole ride, bar none.  The only hills were overpasses, to criss-cross the railroad tracks.  And we were able to stop and fill up with ice every few miles, which was a good thing, because water bottles got hot at about the rate you'd find if you put them over an electric range.

At one stop, we talked a bit to a cashier and she told us that her boss, Dick Woods (in his sixties), was famed for being a long-distance rider, such that touring cyclists would pass through and ask for him; if he wasn't around, they'd say, "well, tell him we came through and we're going this way," and when he found out, he'd go catch up with them.  We thought that was pretty cool.  We thought it even cooler when he greeted us at our next stop with "come in, I'll buy you a drink!", having already heard from his cashier that we were passing through and wanting to talk with us about the trip he was planning, starting from Bangor, ME (Molly's hometown) and up into Canada.  Very friendly, talkative guy.

Thereafter, though, there was nothing but heat, heat, heat.  My water gave out - ironically, because my hydrapack does such a good job at keeping it cool that there was only ice left in it, so I thought it was empty.  And I miscalculated the miles to Wamego, so instead of stopping and asking Molly for water, I pushed on, thinking it would be coming up soon.  And then I collapsed.  We sat for over an hour, resting, and I couldn't eat, could barely make myself drink, my whole body ached, I couldn't modulate temperature - I was shivering even with a long-sleeve shirt on - and was generally miserable.  We tried to find a motel in town, but it was full, so eventually we had to head back out to Manhattan, knowing we needed to get there before nightfall.  And then we passed a church, and enough of my brain functioned to think, "Church.  Hospitality.  Floors."  They welcomed us in, told us to make ourselves at home, no questions asked.  There aren't showers or beds, but honestly, I would far rather sleep on a cement floor, reeking with sweat, than have tried to wobble my way another fourteen miles in the undiminished heat.  
Day Forty-Six - Wamego, KS to Clay Center, KS

Guess what happens in Kansas the day after 100-degree heat, when 100-degree heat is apparently typical for the region and there hasn't been any shift in the weather pattern?

Today we got up at 5:30, and if you aren't impressed by that, please realize that at home in Boston, I would generally rather be going to bed at that time.  But we did, and we would have been on the road by about 6:45 except that Molly then blew a tire while checking her pressure.  In a novel way, even.  Perhaps she'll explain it.  It's true to form, at least - she's the one with the mechanical problems.  I had my usual quota of physical problems, but you know all about those by now; just assume that you could pick two or three out of a hat on any given day, shrug, and go on.  A friend has pointed out to me that I blather on a lot less about being butch these days, I just go ahead and bike across the country, as if that didn't in itself constitute butchness.

We high-tailed it into Manhattan, where we were going to stop for a very short breakfast break, when we were able to ascertain that yes indeed, there was a bike shop close by.  They were so nice to us, they let us in an hour before opening time to allow Molly to get a Very Necessary hydrapack.  Meanwhile, I made some more phone calls to verify that our northern route would be a wise choice (I'm paranoid that way) and then the very nice salesdude came and told us about fourteen times over that it would be unwise to head south.  The reason this was relevant at the moment was that in leaving Manhattan, we would either be heading north or south, accordingly, so it was Decision Time.  We headed north, which means we won't be staying with the people in Lyons, sadly. :(  For those of you who've mailed us packages, thank you, the family in Lyons are forwarding them.  For those of you who really really wanted do but didn't have time to make us cookies beforehand, well, here's the next maildrop:

Mary Lewis Tomlinson
general delivery
St. Francis, KS 67756

We expect to be there in, oh, five or six days.  I'm pulling that number out of thin air, not having counted, but it really does seem that Kansas is an extremely long way across.  Which is both a good and a bad thing, from my perspective.  The people are great.  Everyone is friendly, knowledgeable, and generous.  At one point, we were confused as to our route, got off our bikes and waved our arms at two oncoming cars.  Both stopped.  Every time we ask for information, someone around has it.  And I don't think this is just a factor of small town America.  We've been in states before where people would give us wildly erroneous information as to distances, terrain, etc.  Here, people really do know the distances between towns; they know what services will be available in towns ahead; they know directions.  It's quite cool.  Kansas is also fairly flat.  We hit some hills today, but nothing bad, and we're told it's mostly flat for the rest of the way.  The roads are fabulous.  Even small roads are well paved and have decent shoulders.  Yay Kansans!  Pat yourselves on the back!

And more of you, move to the west.  Because from here on out, it's going to be more and more sparsely populated.  This is worrisome.  Now that we've both got hydrapacks, less so, but still, we do need to fill up on water and hopefully ice, and staying in motels or at least churches is pretty much mandatory in weather like this.  It's still 90 degrees at 8:00 at night.

Today wasn't as miserable as yesterday, mostly because we encountered the famed Kansas wind.  If it were in our faces, it would be indescribably horrific, because it's a steady wind of, I'd guess, 15 mph, with prolonged gusts of, I'd guess, about 20-25 mph.  If it were entirely at our backs, believe it or not, that would be pretty miserable too, because then, while we'd be making terrific time, we'd be kinda biking in still air, moving along with the wind.  And during the brief stretches where that was true today - where we were heading due north, along with the wind - we found that we'd get unbearably hot very very quickly.  As it is, as long as we were moving and the wind was blowing, we were okay.  And we're told that it's pretty much that way all the time.  We're also told that the heat is going to hunker down, build a summer home here, and furnish it in garish 70's wallpaper.  So the heat and wind almost cancel each other out.

Almost.

Another cool thing happened today - we passed touring bikers.  This happens amazingly rarely.  We hear all the time about people doing cross country bike trips.  Everyone's nephew or next door neighbor has done it.  You'd think it was the national sport.  But we have met so incredibly few, even in passing - I think this brings the total up to about a dozen.  This time it was four guys, each towing a BOB trailer, all of which looked rather overloaded.  Stuff hanging off the sides.  We sometimes have stuff hanging off the sides, but it's generally our laundry, which is dry much much earlier in the day.  Like, five minutes after you put it out, in weather like this.  They were headed downhill, we were headed uphill.  Therefore, we decided that we were cooler than they for three reasons: 1) they were overpacked.  Obviously.  Why would four guys need four overstuffed BOB trailers?  You could probably manage it in three, for four people.  2) We were heading uphill and making really good time, they were dawdling.  And they had really expensive sunglasses on, which means they're experienced bikers, therefore they have no excuse for going so slowly downhill.  Or some illogic like that.  3) We're chicks.  And we have a website.  Yah!  We win!  We're awesome!  (Okay, you've got to cut us some slack.  When your skin is gray and encrusted with salt from the fact that you couldn't take a shower  yesterday after pedalling for a day in 100-degree heat, you'll take what you can get in terms of padding your ego.)

We didn't make it as far as we would have liked today, but it's going to be hard to just stop wherever we'd like from here on out.  It was this or another 35 miles up the road, to the next motel.  Uh-uh.  We'll get up early again tomorrow and make it a long long way before noon.  We hope.

Yay!  We got up early and went a long way before noon today!  We're so cool!  Well, okay.  We survived.  If we get cool points for surviving, then we're rolling in them.

We did indeed get out the hotel door by 6:45 and were finished with breakfast and on the road by 7:30, and we'd finished the majority of our biking, about 43 miles, by 12:30.  By noon, it's almost as hot as it's going to get for the day - in this case, 96 out of a possible 101 points.  We did a really good job at planning for stops and finding ice, today.  It doesn't sound like a really exciting thing to be proud of, I know.  In the same way that there are days that are more about "pain management" than biking, today was more about "heat management."  Biking was kinda... secondary.  Incidental.  Something that happened between filling up our hydrapacks.  Biking, these days, is easy.  Totally secondary.  I can completely forget about what my legs are doing, shift without thinking about it, pay attention to the road or, if the road is unworthy of note, the animals or plants or cars or whatnot.  And on days like this, a lot of my attention goes to whether or not I'm about to overheat.

Molly has regaled you with tales of her well-functioning sweat glands.  Mine, sadly, are mere novices at the fine art of secreting liquid so as to cool my body.  Hence, I, the girl who has claimed that it's almost never too hot, found myself eating, or rather, drinking, my words.  It was too hot.  I could barely make it today.

The morning was fine, actually.  It was over 90 degrees before 10:00, but that really doesn't phase me.  I guess I've adjusted enough not to care, so long as there's a breeze.  We made rather nice time, enjoying our crosswind, enjoying the excellent roads and sparse traffic (but friendly traffic, when there was any).  We encountered a small caravan of touring cyclists on a surprisingly small backroad - about 10 guys who'd come from San Fransisco, followed by a sag wagon.  Again, we had a little moment of "we're cooler than that."  We took short breaks, talking with the locals about the landscape and the milo crops.  (Milo is the other thing grown in Kansas, as far as I can tell.  It's a feed crop for livestock.  It looks kinda like short corn with a big head of pollen which, we're told, turns bright red in another month.)  We arrived in Concordia at 12:30 and were thrilled to find it was big enough to have something akin to a cool local bohemian hangout cafe.  Sadly, with few bohemians at it.  Guess they're hard to come by in rural Kansas.  Otherwise, I'd move here. :)  We took a long rest there, psyching ourselves up for the road ahead.

Finally, we resumed, heading due north.  Remember what I said about winds from the south and how they don't cool you?  Apply it here.  It was easily the fastest we've ever biked - 17 mph, a fairly large proportion uphill, probably the fastest we'll ever go except descending the Rockies - but it was utterly miserable.  I poured icewater on myself during the downhills and when large trucks were approaching, trying to take advantage of the breeze generated.  Otherwise, it was like being in still air.  I drank about 80 ounces of ice water in 18 miles; my body just wouldn't turn it into enough sweat.

Ah well.  Belleville's motels are all full to bursting with fair-goers (apparently the horse races are very popular), so we were very lucky that we found at place at the Super 8.  It happens to be the honeymoon suite, but when the other alternative is biking another nine miles in 100-something degree weather, well, you take the room with the heart-shaped jacuzzi and you smile while you do it.

More of the same tomorrow, I'm sure.  We'll be heading due west all day, so hopefully the wind will help us; and it's a popular road for cyclists, so perhaps we'll run into some more.  It really is a rush to meet them.  For now, I'm going to go do some "rash management" in the hopes that I can get it quiescent enough to make use of that jacuzzi I'm paying for...

I'd like to say something fairly serious, and I'm afraid it's going to come across as flippant.  Periodically, I seem to go through health crises that jeopardize my ability to complete this trip.  Some of them sound like they should just be annoyances, like butt rash - but believe me, it can get pretty agonizing to bike, and "butt rash" sounds a little less like a minor peeve and more like a complete misery when you realize there are spots of blood on your biking shorts from it.  Others, though, are pretty clearly things that require maintenance to the extent that either I provide constant support and upkeep or I go home.  One of these is the knees.

Today, I woke up and gasped with pain at my left knee.  I've been taking ibuprofen, stretching, massaging, and even risking the excrutiating rash, wearing the Neoprene brace.  All of this doesn't add up to no knee pain, but it keeps it well within tolerable limits, for the most part.  Today, though, tolerable limits went and cowered in a corner.  Interesting, on my bike, the pain isn't bad; but walking and sitting around, it is.  And biking uphill definitely makes it worse.  And we started what I guess will be the steady uphill climb, today, which will last about a week.  Then we'll hit the Rockies.  Today we had a lot of hills and a cumulative gain of about four hundred feet.  Next week, we'll be having cumulative gains of several thousand.  It doesn't take Einstein to figure out that there are potentially big troubles here.  I'll be as aggressive as I can with ice and compression of the knee, bump up the anti-inflammatories to something stronger, and rest as much as possible; but it just might not work.

Aside from that, my breathing went out the window today.  Pretty abruptly.  Lots of you have suggested all sorts of ways of getting hold of more Albuterol, or other broncho-dilators; apparently what I didn't make clear is that I hadn't run out of Albuterol, it had stopped working.  I was using it constantly and it was beginning to rebound on me, such that I felt more anxiety than relief from using it.  So I stopped.  Well, today I couldn't breathe, couldn't get in a deep enough breath, ascending moderate sized hills.  I can't now, either, just sitting around.  This bodes ill.  I took some Albuterol and found that the anxiety, the jitteriness, was pretty bad, but that it did help with the breathing.

Why would the problem hit again?  Perhaps the heat; but it's not hot in the hotel room now and I'm fighting for a good breath.  Fear?  I doubt it.  I fear things all the time and it doesn't affect me like this.  No, what I worry and suspect is that it's the altitude gain.  And if that proves true, well, no mincing words, this trip is screwed.  We're at less than 2000 feet now.  We'll be ascending to almost 12,000.

I have to admit, today was pretty miserable.  It was 105 degrees.  100, at 8:00 at night.  There was very little of interest to see.  Sure, scenery is always kinda nice - railroads, the occasional pretty flower, whatever.  But even the crops are vanishing.  We saw two fields of sunflowers, all paying homage to the sun, of course, and sporadic milo.  But mostly it's becoming too dry for anything but grass.  We have to wait for a break, sometimes for a mile or two, until we find a tree to skitter under.  To make matters worse, we lost our wind today.  I have no clue why, but the famed Kansas omnipresent wind never really made an appearance.  I was grateful for every passing vehicle of whatever type.  There are no adequate words for heat like this.  It's like a bludgeon, like a wild animal clawing at your skin to get inside.  You feel as if the sky hates you, like you have to cower and run from it.  You can't think.  Your brain shuts down.  There is nothing but you and the heat, your odometer counting down the miles to a motel, and your hydrapack.

I don't know what I'll do if I can't continue.  Ditch the plans and...what?  Fly home from where?  There's no airport between here and Denver, and obviously I can't bike to Denver if the knee and breathing are so attuned to altitude gains.  Rent a car, see the southwest?  What, alone? - boring.  I don't know yet.

Today registered as a nine on a scale of one to Upstate New York.  I'm sorry I have nothing funny or cool to report, but it really wasn't a funny or cool day, and the next two aren't likely to be either.

If you're ever tempted to write me and just don't get around to doing it, this would be the time to do so.