Jul/093
Day 34 – Windy Day
Today was a pretty normal day. Dowds ate breakfast:
Callum looked strange:
We cycled about 10 miles west, followed by about 19 miles north. In the second section we had a tailwind and managed to average 22.5 mph, which was fun. By the time we got to Rush Center, our planned stop for breakfast/lunch, we had done about 30 miles and averaged 19.4 mph for the day so far… which was nice. Our stop at Rush Center wasn’t quite as useful as we had hoped because it turned out that the town has ample provision for those who want to get hammered, but nothing for anyone who wants a bit of food. In this town there are three liquor stores and zero restaurants or grocery stores. Here is Callum asking if any paperwork is required for him to move there after we finish:
There were no shops for the next 30 miles so we started munching down chocolate bars and gettingready to go until a guy showed up in his truck with a plastic bag full of bread, meat and veg for us to make some sandwiches with. He had been in the liquor store when Cal was asking where to get food and had nipped home, sorted us out a packed lunch and drove back. We were very grateful and we can add him our mental list of exceptionally kind people we have met so far. Cheers.
Got back on the road and got hit with a pretty horrible side-wind/head-wind. It wasn’t particularly nice but we just stuck headphones on and plowed through it.
Freaking out pilots – bloody mischievous; those religious lot.
Arrived in Ness City, KS. in pretty good time despite the winds, but we were slightly worried about camping with some of the freaky weather that was coming in:
There was lightning over to the north, but it didn’t look like rainclouds. We asked around and found out that the city was on “storm watch”.
“What does that mean exactly? What sort of weather would you class as a storm?”
“High winds, driving rain, hail the size of golf balls… that sorta thing”
“Oh. We’re planning on camping – is that a good idea?”
“…Probably not.”
We cycled down to the place we’d be camping (a city park) and found that we probably wouldn’t get much sleep regardless of weather because there was a little-league baseball tournament in progress.
Callum also managed to pick up a puncture so me and Dowds amused ourselves by switching between watching the baseball game and Callum’s puncture repair techniques.
The baseball tournament ended up finishing early due to the storm which was moving in. I asked around some of the locals to get their opinion on whether we would be safe camping or not and eventually, after some conferring which involved the words “tornado” and “nearest storm shelter”, the consensus seemed to be that we should get a motel. By the time I’d talked this over with them, Callum had already pitched his tent and really didn’t want to move. When I walked out of the tree cover, all I could see at this time was lightning casting a silhouette of a very big, black cloud. Oh well. We decided to pitch our tents but be ready to very quickly pack up and leave if everything got a little bit too windy and rainy and scary. Callum’s tent collapsed after a gust of wind ripped out some pegs which we insisted he should secure properly on this particular night… so Dowds’ had the pleasure of receiving a rain-soaked Callum Reid as a guest in his tent. The next morning I snapped this photo of the happy couple:
During the storm we talked over walkie-talkie about the chances that we might be able to win an award for being the stupidest people to cycle across the USA. I think we’d have a pretty good chance.