Photo 1: Highway 50 closed on the outskirts of Emporia.
Photo 1: Highway 50 closed on the outskirts of Emporia.
Photo 2: A cloudy, gloomy day on the way to Osage City.
Photo 3: Conoco station in Pomona, KS.
Photo 4: End of the trail photo in Ottawa, KS.
Last Modified on 9/28/1999 at 19:08:35
Day's Narrative: I was looking forward to the ride today. It would be shorter than the last few days, and would be relatively traffic free. I was going to ride on old US highway 50 which parallels Interstate 35 for 55 miles to Ottawa. There was a weather forecast of a cold front coming down from the North this afternoon which would drop temperatures by 10 or 15 F, bring rain showers, as well as change the wind direction. It was important to get to Ottawa early in the afternoon. Just five miles out of Emporia I saw the sign in Photo 1. There is no way to tell from the sign just where in the 55 miles the bridge was out. If there were I could ride the Interstate shoulder to an exit just beyond the bridge [which is probably illegal in Kansas] or I could get Connie to drive me to the exit. I looked at the map there at the sign and it didn't provide any easy answers to an alternate route. I needed the detailed maps that Connie had in the room with her. I had to ride five miles back to the motel anyway to tell Connie about the problem. So I pedaled back through Emporia to the motel. I woke Connie up from a sound sleep to let me back into the motel room. Using the detailed maps I found a route to the North through Osage City and Pomona. At this point Connie gave up trying to sleep late and started to break [motel] camp. I left again about 8:45, having lost an hour and a half of precious good-weather time. The weather was overcast and gloomy, but not cold. See Photo 2. Connie caught up with me just before the village of Reading about 10:30. Later down the road at Osage City Connie was sitting in the van reading a book, waiting for me to arrive so we could have lunch together at Pizza Hut. That was a surprise! As I rode on after lunch the weather began to clear. I got to Ottawa at 4:00 pm. The predicted cold front never appeared. Today is the end of the ride. I would to make some observations about the trip and the country we have gone through. Bed Wetting We discovered that only in Dodge City and Larned did the motel beds have protective rubber sheets over the mattresses. It appears that this is the middle of bed wetting country. The only explanation I can think of is that the smell of the cattle feed lots in the area give the traveler a compulsion to wet the bed. The local residents are probably immune, having lived with the smell most of their lives. Fortunately, Connie and I appear to be immune also. Restaurants In one town we discovered, based on the number of cars in the parking lot, that the Pizza Hut was the best restaurant in town. When this happens you know you are in deep, culinary trouble. At a restaurant in Dodge City everyone over 60 except me used some type of mechanical assistance to walk. This is may be a result of eating too much chicken fried steak. Motorists I was pedaling along near Osage City with so little traffic I could hear a car coming for miles. As a lone car approached from behind I rode closer to the right side. As he passed he blew his horn in the "Get off the road" manner I am so familiar with. It's only been recently that I've discovered that there are people who don't know that bicycles have a right to be on the road. A couple of days ago I was riding along on an almost empty road when I looked up to find a pickup coming at me in my lane passing a much larger truck. I put my right arm high in the air and waved it back and forth trying to get him to see me and pull back in his lane. It didn't work and he kept coming at me. In order to avoid being hit, I pulled off onto the shoulder. As he passed I held my clinched fist up in the air. He wouldn't make eye contact with me. The driver of the big truck, however, blew his horn and waved in a very friendly manner. The Morning After It's now Monday September 27. That cold front finally came though about midnight last night with lots of thunder, lightening and very heavy rain. It's cold now and still raining -- not exactly a good day to ride. Some of the days this last week I was suffering from anecdote deprivation, still, it was a good ride across Kansas, and I didn't have any flats. © Ray & Connie Poore, 1998
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