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| Pueblo Colorado. Finally the BIG Mountains are over and we spend the next 3 days going slightly down hill until we reach the plains and heat of Kansas. I really hate Kansas and this is my 3rd time crossing this state (first time on the Bike Trail) and each time I have said, "NEVER AGAIN". This time was really the best and worst of the other crossings as it was the hottest ever but was without the bad winds that usually blow out here. It was 105+ everyday and I think Jim and I jumped off every bridge into every stream we could find just to try and cool off. We would leave camp every day at sunrise trying to get in the days ride before lunch and then would sit in an air cond. movie house or a bar drinking cold brewskies during the bad heat of the day. One morning Jim suggested we start really early and try to do a double days ride to speed up getting across and into the cooler Mt. area of the Ozarks, I agreed and we set out at about 4:30 in the a.m. (bad mistake) The sunrise on the plains was great that day and I think it was the hottest day of them all, at about 11a.m. and at the 90 mile mark I hit the wall. I had drank 2 1/2 gals of fluids and was still dehydrated! We finally found some shade at a farmhouse and when the owners returned they treated us with ice water and gator aid and finally got us on our way again, it took an hour for me to stop hyperventilating and to get my heart rate under 140. We finished off the last 30 miles in a couple of hours and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the park swimming pool. All the towns in this state have big parks with pools and some have water parks. All cyclists are invited to swim, shower and use the restrooms and to camp in the parks and it's all free. Some kind of agreement with Adventure Cycling Assoc. When arriving at a new park you check in at the pool desk and they tell you where to put up your tent then come swim and enjoy yourself. They leave the restrooms and showers open all night for us, it's great hospitality. It's probably the only way they can get us to ride across their state and spend our $$. We got to one park one evening and were told the area to camp in but there were so many cyclists there we decided to put our tents up in a different area and about 2 a.m. we found out why they tell you where to camp. Seems like they move the camping area daily to prevent grass damage and they turn the water cannons for that area off for the day. Well, when the water came on it almost blew us away. After that we paid more attention to what we were told. After Kansas we got into the Hills of the Ozarks, in Missouri, and now it wasn't just hot it was very humid as well and with very steep hills all the way across the state. The climbs weren't long just very steep. Again we participated in swimming in almost every river that came along and we tried to camp next to a river when we could so we could just lay in it and soak. Getting a lot of very big thunderstorms again but only late in the afternoons and we are done riding by this time. Really enjoyed cycling across this state, it's very beautiful here and all the hard work was worth it. We met a lot of the local people all the way across and they were all very friendly and helpful and would invite us in for food and drink and a lot of them would let us camp in their fields, barns or what have you. Missouri is the state where my High School girlfriend, Priscilla Mellies is from, infact she and her husband is there visiting her family as I write this. We did a fast track across So. Illinois (2 days) and then caught the ferry across the Ohio River to Kentucky. Another beautiful state, a lot like Missouri but the roads over the hills were built by more intelligent beings. These two states were very notorious for the bad bike chasing dogs but we finally got them figured out. We would let them come racing up to the bike then hit them in the face with a blast of water out of our water bottles and they would almost go ass over tail trying to stop and turn around. It really worked great unless you got a dog who like to play in the water. KY was the most heavily forested and overgrown state which made it very beautiful, however, it was also the most filthy in the way of garbage lining the edge of the road ways, had to be thrown there by the locals as no one traveling anywhere uses these roads. You had to be very careful in certain areas as coal mining is a big thing here and there are many coal trucks, I mean really big stuff, and lumps of coal are littered along the route. Finally we reach Virginia, the last state for Jim to cross and then he will catch a bus home to Cincinatti. We have a dire experience here as while camped in a Nat. Park a big T-storm that had been chasing us all day finally caught up and it hailed for about 2 hours and a small tornado ripped through the park and tore up a lot of trees and stuff. We hid out in the shower house which was cinder block and made it through OK. We thought our tents and stuff would all be gone or destroyed but even though big branches were laying all around our tents none had hit either one and we were happy about that. Jim had his bike cabled to a picnic table that was concreted in the ground so his bike was safe, then he looked for my bike which was just leaning up against the tree and said, "Where is your bike," I looked around and it was gone, damn I thought, someone stole my bike during the storm now what am I going to do? There was a big clearing out in the middle of the park and there in the middle of it was a big pile of tree branches and stuff, looked like the tornado had twisted it all up in a big heap and then left it there. Jim said it looked like a bike wheel was sticking up out of the middle of it so we walked over and took a look and sure enough there was my steed all buried in this stuff. We dug it out wondering how damaged it would be but to our amazement it not only wasn't damaged it didn't even have a scratch on it anywhere. We could hardly believe it, don't want to even try to explain it. What good luck! We got to the approach of the Appalachians and were now working our way through the last of the hills and mountains of our trip. The very last hill was a 4 mile climb of 15%+ up to the Blue Ridge Pky. What a beautiful view we had from there and all along the 30 mile section of the Pky. that we rode. When we got to the Gap we headed down the East side into a small town of Afton, where the world famous cookie lady lives and we spent the night there at her little hostel and what a place it was. I don't have time or space to write about all that was there but can relate this story and tell about the funniest thing that happened on the trip at our 50th. We stopped at Mt. Pillier to visit Pres. Jefferson's place and what a place that was, if your ever traveling through this area don't miss it as it is really amazing how they lived during those years. We are just riding down the alluvial plain and through rolling countryside when we finally get to Yorktown, Jamestown and the coast. Jim dips his front wheel in the Atlantic and we head for camp. A great area with a lot of history, you feel this great awe as you stand in the same places where this great country all started. Jim and I part ways now and once again I'm alone, I catch the ferry across the James River and 13 miles down the road I pick up the East coast bike route and start the final leg of my journey once again southbound. I can now make better time as Jim likes to ride about 1/2 to 1 mph faster that I do and by the time we put in 75+ miles I'm pretty tired. Now that I can ride my own pace and stop whenever I want I find myself doing 110 to 125 miles daily and I'm not the least bit tired by the end of the day. It's funny how such a small difference in the speed you ride can make such a big difference in your daily mileage and how you feel at days end. I pass through so many civil war battle fields and areas of history I can't even begin to remember them all, all I know is there were many more that I could have imagined and I only saw a small percentage of what is in that area of the South. Most of the names were familiar but a lot were not, I guess I should have paid better attention in my history classes. Several ferry boat rides during the next few days take me across the waterways along the coast of Virginia, the Carolina's and into Georgia. |