DAY 30 JULY 18, 2010

DAY 30!!!!!Pine Bluff Arkansas---2445 miles to Portland, Oregon on bicycle. 699 miles to Freeport, Florida. For the first 25 days everyone we met thought that Florida was so far away and we would have a difficult time completing this ride. Now we are feeling that it is just around, over and down the next stretch of road. Also, people were saying that Florida was sooo far away but now, Portland is a long way from here. I guess I could have said; "we are getting closer to home everyday! It's not the heat, it's the humidity. Bologna! It was humid today but the heat was a killer. It was 111 degrees at 1:00pm and still at 4:30pm it was 102. By the way, Arkansas is not flat. It is a state with the Ozark Mts. to the west and the rolling hills throughout. We went through many small towns today. They all looked the same; old, poor, run down, businesses closed but they all had many Baptist Churches. The pictures today reflect the heat, our views of an alligator river, Ozark Mts. and us and where we are. Pine Bluff is a gang infested city and the curfews are strongly enforced to keep kids off the streets. We are planning for an early start to close in on the Mississippi River.

Day 29 July 17, 2010

We are in Arkansas. The wind finally moved us along in good fashion. We are in Little Rock after some serious miles! We just went over 2180 miles. The Arkansas River has been meandering across our trail for hundreds of miles.

The Arkansas River(pictured above) is 1,450 mi long, originating in the Rocky Mts., central Colo., and flowing generally SE across the plains to the Mississippi River, In SE Ark.the river drains 160,500 sq miles. It is the chief waterway for the state of Arkansas, where it drains a broad valley. The upper course of the Arkansas River has many rapids and flows through Royal Gorge, one of the deepest canyons in the United States. More than 25 dams on the river provide flood control, power, and irrigation. During the warm months, because of its extensive use for irrigation, the middle course of the Arkansas is reduced to a trickle. We especially saw this in central Kansas where the river bed was basically dry. Without irrigation, people in our country would starve.

Our first stop in Little Rock was the Farmer's Market. We had freshly baked Biallies and ripe peaches.

The rusted train bridge will become part of a 50 mile bicycle route around Little Rock. Bill Clinton helped orchestrate 100,000 dollars to renovate and convert it into a bicycle bridge.

We went to the Clinton Presidential Library and the state capitol before we packed up to head out of town.

DAY 28 July 16, 2010

We took a day off from riding and rented a car to drive to Kansas City, Missouri to see the Royals play baseball against Oakland Athletics. We rode to the airport and rented a Santa Fe Hyundai to put our bicycles and gear in to head 188 miles north to KC. We literally purchased the last two tickets for the game! They did have 480 standing room tickets but we bought the last two seats!!!!!

Day 27 July 15, 2010

Hutchinson to Wichita. Today we saw corn, corn and more corn. We got up at 5:00 to begin our trip to Wichita. A strong storm came through over night to cool things down and remain cloudy. It was a fifty mile trek. We wanted to get into a large city to restock ourselves with a couple new tires, tubes and CO2 cartridges to pump up our tires. The cartridges are a marvelous discovery to rapidly pump up the tires, seconds vs. 10-15 minutes and a lot of arm energy. My rear tire is about to peel off like a retread tire on a semi truck. We rode into Wichita at 1:30 and very tired. We had directions to the bicycle shop and we were on our way. The woman at the store told us 2-3 miles to get there. Guess again Miss Geographer, 11 miles! We picked up two new tires for my bike and replaced the rear tire while at the shop. The new tires are called, Armadillo tires. The bike store said they will not get flat for the rest of our trip home. We will see. We cycled by the home headquarters and factory for the famous Cessna airplane company. Wichita has a population of 375,000 people making it the 51st largest city in America and the largest city in Kansas. The name Wichita means, "town with winds out of the south". It means "difficult, frustrating city to ride into" to cyclists. Deb took a short break with the temps above 100 degrees to eat an ice cream. We have been drinking so much water our appetites are poor. Every stop we make, we have been drinking a lot of whole milk, either regular or chocolate. No need to worry about putting on pounds. We just came back from having a huge homecooked meal at a diner. We spoke with the manager about our trip during the meal for five minutes. When we were ready to pay for the bill, the waiter said that the meal was on the house. We have met a lot of very generous people on this trip.

Day 26 JULY 14, 2010

HOT AND HUMID!!! 104 degrees! We were cycling from Dodge City and heading east. We were up at 6:30 to get riding before the southerly winds kicked up. We have heard from five or six cyclist here in Kansas that many people who encounter the "wicked winds" of Kansas, give up their cross country goal. There is certainly a lot of psychology that goes into conquering the winds of Kansas. We were never made aware of them but we learned fast how they can play games with your head and demoralize a person. We have had true tailwinds 2 of our 26 days of cycling. We were outside Hutchinson, KS when we came across this huge 5000 acre windmill farm. If you cannot read the photo, these windmills can produce enough energy to power 33,000 homes each year. When we cycled into Hutchinson, KS we met a wonderful family who offered us a house to ourselves that they own. Jennifer and Dan (Randall, Brizendine). We are very thankful to them for their thoughtful consideration in putting up two exhausted cyclists.

Day 25 July 13, 2010

What a difference a day makes. We have been having some really nice warm days but today turned HOT! It was 97 degrees on the bank thermometer and my bicycle computer read 102 at noon. We cycled about 50 miles and during that time, we drank nine water bottles. We were lucky that towns are now closer together so we could refill every nine or ten miles. We met a veteran who was walking across the country in hopes of raising 5 million dollars for vets without benefits. His "crew" in a motor home took our picture to put on Fox News website. He has his own website too; www.drumhike.com if you want to check Troy out. We made it to Kinsley, KS, the geographical center of the USA between San Francisco and New York City. We are staying at a hunting lodge tonight with 23 other men. We are having venison, elk and brats for supper. Hopefully we can get an early start before things really heat up tomorrow.

DAY 24 JULY 12, 2010 DODGE CITY, KANSAS

We have decided to spend a full day in Dodge City since there is so much history and places to visit. We began our day at the casino. I went in with 30 dollars. I was down to my last 1.25 when I hit for 50 dollars. We walked out with the 30 dollars I started with plus twenty for lunch. We then pedaled over to the original Dodge City and Boot Hill(the cemetery and highest point in Dodge). During the first year of settlement, there were twenty-five men killed by gunshot and more than double that number wounded. All those killed died with their boots on and were buried on Boot Hill, but few of the number in coffins, on account of the high price of lumber caused by the high freight rates. Boot Hill is the highest and about the most prominent hill in Dodge City, and is near the center of the town. It derived its name from the fact that it was the burying ground, in the early days, of those who died with their boots on. There were about thirty persons buried there, all with their boots on and without coffins.

During the early settlement, there was initially no law enforcement and Dodge City quickly acquired its infamous stamp of lawlessness and gun slinging. As the many buffalo hunters, railroad workers, drifters and soldiers streamed into the town after long excursions on the prairie, they quickly found the saloons and the inevitable fights ensued. With the gunfighters dying with their boots on, Dodge City was in need of a sheriff. Two famous sheriffs from the 1870's and 1880's were Wyatt Earp, "Bat" Masterson and "Doc" Holiday. Pictured is the largest grain storage elevator in the USA. We heard today that 9,000 head of cattle are butchered everyday here in Ford County, Dodge City.