Miles 1674 to 1725, 51 miles, 650 feet of climb, max speed: 30 mph, avg speed 15 mph (easiest day of tour)
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The air smells so good after a storm
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The beauty of this open country is too much for the eye to take in. Others think this part of the country quite boring. For me, no, this is hands-on research for my books, and the ideas are just exploding in my thoughts as I pedal down the road. This certainly is a blessed land. The picture on the right is a remnant of the storm that blew through Garden City this morning. The headline in the morning paper at the hotel was “It Rained”. They really don’t care much about what happens on America’s coasts or in the Middle East around here. (Good luck finding a USA Today or Wall Street Journal around here.) Local news is the only news, and rain (when you only get 15 inches average a year) is big news anytime it happens.
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| Clark's Pharmacy, Downtown Cimarron KS |
Mark our mechanic and I are getting to know each other better by accident. I had another flat tire this morning. There were four little pesky culprit steel belted radial time wires lodged in the tire. It took forever to find them and extract, but we must otherwise two minutes down the road the same wire will puncture the new tube. After the repair we rode almost all of the remaining thirty miles together. The highlight of today’s ride was enjoying a Sarsaparilla Shake (root beer float) with Mark at the Clark Pharmacy in downtown Cimarron, KS. I captured three of the four of our America by Bicycle (AbB) staff in the picture, Gene and Jane (married) and Mark (unmarried). The pharmacy was on the corner of Main and US50, and Main Street runs due north out of Cimarron with the next stop sign in Dighton (90 miles away, but it is flat enough here that you can still see it). Dighton was the home of my college roommate. We would fly from school to their home in Dighton in his dad’s twin engine plane and spend our long weekends there. I am not sure but I always thought that their grass runway in their backyard was too short. I do not know how we ever landed on their property without taking out a couple rows of corn, but we did.
The two accommodations we have stayed at have been phenomenal. Yesterday’s stay at the Garden City Comfort Inn had the best guest reception, to include iced down bottled water, sliced oranges, and large, cold, wet hand towels to put around our necks as we came inside out of the sun. Today’s accommodation is at the Dodge House Hotel. It has a closed in atrium the size of a high school gym full of fun things like ping pong, pool, swimming pool, volleyball court, bar area in Dodge City motif, and shuttle service to neat places to go (as long as the word Casino is in the destination). Breakfast in the morning is supposed to be great. This morning in Garden City we had real silverware and real plates with real food just cooked by a real cook. Sleeping in, and then a breakfast like that was a real treat for the beat like me and my feet.
Bottom Line: I needed this short day. I am really refreshed.
Did you visit the China Doll in Dodge City? Was this the easiest ride of the trip to afford you that opportunity? Almost half-way?
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