Day 48, Newton to Nickerson, Kansas.

Markus in the yellow shirt, and Per sitting, are from Sweden. They started their east to west journey from Washington D.C., and will end up in Seattle, Washington. I hope i got that right.

The welcome to Nickerson sign with a large grain processing and storage facility in the back.

This old retired tracker has seen it's days. I can imagine how hard this baby worked during it's time.

Roger on the right is from Australia, and David in the middle is from Brittan. I don't know who that it on the right. Oh, sorry, that's Lisa.

In the town of Buhler, nothing was open on Sunday. I mean nothing, as in zero.

I'm guessing this is an old jail house here in Buhler.

Down town Buhler. See? I told you nothing was open.

They should have put "Nothing Open On Sunday" on this wagon as well.

This entire pond was covered with this green muck. Or maybe it's some kind of organic substance.

Meet James. While we were passing through Hesston, he was across the street mowing the lawn when he noticed us at the stop light talking with Bob. He came over with ice cold frozen Gator Ade for us to take along with us. "Thank you James, You made our day".

Bob from Littleton, Colorado was out riding his bike and stopped to chat. His wife's family is from Hesston where this picture was taken.

This barn was different than any of the ones we've seen so far. The roof was of shake, and notice the up side down heart on the gable end.

A hawk on the hunt. Probably looking for field mice, ground hogs, rabbits, or a small, lost biker.

While we stopped for lunch in Buhler, this rabbit came out from under the fence, and let me shoot him.


As we were riding along, Lisa noticed what she thought was a knob on the telephone pole. It was actually this hawk, it even stayed put while I got out my camera.

The streets of some of these small towns are made of brick. Yes, red ones.

Sorry for the blurred picture, I shot it on the move. This is a combine cutting wheat. The thing moves pretty fast. Not like those old fashion ones that they told us about in school.

I'm guessing this thing picks up the cut wheat somehow, and transfers it to the big trucks. A girl was driving this thing. I don't know if that's good or bad. Lisa said it was good. So it must be.


One of two grain processing facilities in Buhler.

This is my new favorite mail box holder. Buhler is ahead at this point.

I don't really think the church is in that pond, but I took this shot anyway.

How would you like to have one of these in you back yard? Some of these houses do.


Sunday, June 28, 2009

Day 48, Newton to Nickerson, Kansas. “A Late Start, But Smart”. 60.85 miles.

Last night was a real treat. Dinner with my family after not seeing them for over a month and a half, was a real joy. Especially seeing how happy my mom was to see me, and to know that we were okay. Thank you lord, for all the little things in life I tend to take for granted.
This morning Lisa and I had a late start. We didn’t get up till seven, and didn’t really make an effort to pack till nine. We were in absolutely no rush what so ever. We know we only had a little over fifty miles to go, and the forecast called for cooler temperatures for the area. At 7:30AM, it was only 69 degrees out side, as compared to 89 degrees a couple of days earlier. I took advantage of the time to check my e-mail, and surf the inter-net.
We pulled out of Newton at about 10:30 or so after breakfast at McDonald's. I know, I know. You’re thinking, “McDonald's again?” But let me tell you, when nothing else close by is open, and you want fast service, McDonald's is hard to beat. And the price can’t be touched by most restaurants in the area. Anyway, the reason it took a little longer than normal, is because this older guy in his late 60’s came over and started a conversation about our trip. Nice guy, very talkative, and he had this large drawing tablet with him, and a pencil over one ear. He told us he wrote poems, and that was it. Once he opened the book, he had Lisa reading all his poems. The guy was also an artist. And a not bad one at that. He had drawn pictures to go along with his poems, which were very professional looking. Both the drawings, and the poems. We didn’t get his name, but after a while, he told us he had to go cause he was late for church.
As we headed out of Newton, we were amazed at how comfortable the temperature was for this late in the morning. I must have still been in the upper 70’s to lower 80’s. We weren’t complaining, it was nice………….. The day before, I had bought a thermometer and a compass to place on top of my handle bar bag, just to see hot hot it got on the road. For $6.00, I thought it was a good deal. At one point during the ride, the temperature got up to 112. But it didn’t feel that way. I latter contributed it to the fact that the air was a lot drier that the previous days. I was hardly perspiring at all.
We rode for about an hour and a half before coming to the town of Heston where we met a roadie named Tom from Colorado who was in town visiting his wife’s family. We stopped at a stop light and chatted for about 15 minutes or so, and bid each other good luck as we started on our way. Just then, James, a guy from across the street who had notice us there, came over with two bottles of frozen Gatorade for us. James was mowing the lawn, so he knew how hot we were. He asked us where we were headed for. We told him, Nickerson. “Nickerson”, he asked. “Why you guys wanna go there?”. By this time we were wondering what was up with Nickerson, cause he was the third person today that said the same thing. With that, we were on our way.
We rode for another couple of hours or so before coming to the town of Buhler where we thought we would stop and have our lunch. As we rode through Main Street (It seems like every town we go through has one), we noticed that nothing was open. Really, not one thing. A car stopped in the middle of the empty street, and the driver rolled down his window and asked, “You guys are looking for something to eat, aren’t you?” He then told us that everything in Buhler closes on Sunday. It’s a church town, and I guess everyone there goes to the same church. Even the police station looked like it was closed. The mans wife then offered us baked potatoes, corn chips, and some home made goodies for desert. They had just come from a church potato bake, and had some extra that they wanted to share with us. They then told us that they were headed out of town, or the would take us home with them and feed us. We were very, very grateful, and thanked them from the bottom of our hearts. A little while latter, a gentleman told us we could go to his house to get fresh water. There was none anywhere where we were. As we were filling our bottles, he told us there was a rest room at the park not far from there. Good thing too, I had to go. The park was really nice. It had a swimming pool, a small lake, and very well kept. I wish we would have stayed there.
We left Buhler with our bellies full, and smiling once again. Being it that it was a Sunday, the traffic was very light, and we were able to stop almost anytime we wanted to take pictures and just enjoy the experience................ One funny mail box we saw had the name "Peachy Stoner" on it. I looked at Lisa and said, "There's a message in that. The guy is trying to tell us that he's gay, and that he smokes pot".
About mid way into our ride after lunch, we ran into a couple of east bounders who stopped and chatted with us. Roger, the older of the two was from Australia, and David was from England. They both met on the crazy guyonabike website and decided to travel together. I did get pictures of them, and we exchanged information about the route ahead.
Today we saw two dead deer, a couple of dead raccoons, and some turkeys, a family of wild ducks, and a hawk. We rolled into Nickerson at 5:30PM, and are spending the night at the city park. The park is pretty run down, and there are no showers, so it’s a sink bath again. The men’s toilet it clogged, so looks like I gotta use the wahine toilet tonight. A few minutes ago, two west bounders from Sweden by the names of Per (Pronounced Pat), and Markus came rolling in and will spend the night with us at the park. We will have plenty of time to get to know them.
Well, good night for now, we have no inter-net tonight, so I will post this at a later time.
Aloooooha, Ted.