Starting the week, we spent an extra day in Hutchinson to hopefully wait out the worst of the storms. Treating it like a rest day, we went and got donuts and some much appreciated coffee. Afterwards, we returned to the church we were staying at to work out a plan for the rest of the night. We saw there was a movie theater nearby and wanted to see the new Marvel movie, “New Mutants.” It was raining and it would be dark by the time the movie would finish, so we looked for an Uber to take us there and alleviate some stress.
Unfortunately, the one Uber driver id Hutchinson, Kansas was a little busy before he picked us up ( It took 10 minutes to start the .2 mile distance between us ) and when he arrived I looked up at the console display to see his Bluetooth had automatically connected and was illuminating his last played audio… from XXXVIDEOS.COM! He quickly realized and tried to smoothly click it away but luckily I snapped a picture before he did. Needless to say, we were speechless and reported him to Uber after we safely departed the vehicle. I’m just glad we were wearing masks and he couldn’t see my jaw obviously dropping as I read that.
After the movie, we called a local taxi service instead and got a ride back to the church. The weather still looked crummy for the next day, but we needed to try and push through to get to our next location.
As we departed in the morning, we had 76 miles to go and the rain just got worse and worse. Not only was the wind howling against us, but the road we were on was so busy the big trucks were spraying mist until the visibility was near zero. Paula said she couldn’t see me when I was more than 10 feet in front of her. It got to the point where it was too unsafe to pedal on, so we pulled over to a nearby cemetery and found an old bathroom to take shelter in as we figured out a new plan.
We ended up getting the local Sheriff to pick us up and drive us into Newton, Kansas where we found a hotel to spend the night in. We were so grateful for the rescue and used the extra rest to gear up mentally for the coming days.
We left the Holiday Inn and went through what I call “Moody Kansas” — the dark, cloudy skies and dry corn fields had a completely different feeling to the usually sunny state and put me in the Fall mood. We rode to Cassoday, our original destination for the previous day, and set up camp behind the country store.
The next day, my parents planned to visit and we rode to Pittsburg, Kansas — the spot we would have been at if no storms interfered with our week. We got dinner at an old fashioned steakhouse and enjoyed some very good, stringy onion rings. Over the weekend, we explored Pittsburg by eating at different diners, trying the long feuding chicken places, and we even spent time to see Big Brutus! For those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Big Brutus, it is a gigantic electric shovel that was too expensive to move, so it is now a museum in West Mineral, Kansas. Paula and I thought it was such a cool, unique place to see and thoroughly recommend it to anyone passing through.
Sadly, it was time to depart from my parents and also from Kansas. We set off for Missouri and enjoyed the flattest part of the stare we knew we would encounter. We stayed at a lakeside campground in Greenfield, Missouri and prepared for the heavy elevation we knew we’d see in the coming days.
We ended the week with a very difficult day. Kansas along with the unexpected amount of rest days combined for a big shock when we did over 4,000 ft of elevation in one day. We finished at 6:30 pm and were exhausted, but luckily the Lion’s Club had a great park for us to stay at with showers that was amazingly close to a nice gas station. Hopefully, the shock of Missouri hills will wear off after today, and we’ll get back into the grove of it.
A Funny Moment of the Week: Well, after the scary Uber ride, we decided to go a different route and get a taxi on the way home. Unfortunately, the taxi service wasn’t exactly a limousine either. We got into what the driver explained was a “repaired old police car” and one of the back doors wouldn’t open so I guess the repairs went to other areas. Also, the driver was actually the mechanic because all of the real drivers had quit. To put the cherry on top, he needed me to navigate him the 3 miles to the church from the theater and charged me thirteen dollars. Well, we got there in one piece but it was just a funny trade off in transportation quality.
What We’ve Learned: Delays happen. And that’s okay. This week, we had to work around a lot of things that weren’t in our control and it got frustrating at times. All you want to do is “go, go, go” and keep on biking but when it’s not safe, you just have to figure out an alternative and push through. When the rain got so bad on our way to Newton, we had to set aside our desire to keep going and realize that destinations can be rearranged and for the better that. We would much rather stop a little earlier than expected than in the hospital.