Episodes 7 and 8!

 

 

 

Made it to San Fran! Coming soon..a blog post! :}

BUSMS Episode 6!

 

Larned, KS to Gunnison, CO!

Headin’ into Colorado!

Colorado is by far one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to. I was really sad when we left CO to go into UT (even though I’d find UT to be awesome as well).

Eastern CO was still pretty similar to Kansas – there were many grain elevators and the heat was on. It was early in July and the group wanted to make it into Pueblo on the 4th of July in order to see the fireworks. So we decided on our second Colorado day to keep riding into Pueblo instead of stopping in Ordway – we rode 120 total that day! On our way we passed these train cars that seemed to be abandoned on the track. The cars went on for miles and miles, through towns..for like a dozen miles.

That was pretty early in the day, and by the time we’d gotten to Ordway we were pumped to get into Pueblo. On the way in we saw some wild prairie dogs scattering about on the side of the road; it doesn’t really sound too exciting but it's the first time I’d seen these guys out in the wild (a very similar experience to when I got excited to see squirrels when I first came to the states).

We had a great time in Pueblo – we stayed in a hotel, walked around town a lot, got to see the fireworks at night, all in a town of over 100,000 people which is pretty much the most populated town we’d gone to. We had a rest day the next day, which meant we all ran around and took care of errands, visited local bike shops, etc. It was really hot outside so in my case there was a lot of hotel hanging out and tv watching (we don’t get to do this much anymore so it was nice).

The day after the rest day we were set to go into Cotopaxi. We had to climb up over 8000 feet, our first time making climbs to these elevations. The climb was as beautiful as it was challenging – my body wasn’t used to such high elevations so while I would be climbing normally at a lower elevation, now my heart was racing at speeds as slow as 4mph. I couldn’t even drink water and pedal at the same time – I would have to stop under some shade, catch my breath, drink, then keep going. You could definitely tell your body was having to work much harder due to decreased oxygen levels.

The descent from there was soo beautiful. I even had this doe gallop like 10 feet away from me on the side of the road, cut in front of me, then keep galloping towards a mountain on the other side. It was awesome and was one of the things that started my love for Colorado. Here’s a vid I took during the descent.

 

The ride into Cotopaxi that day was pretty nice – winds weren’t a problem and it was relatively flat with some small rolling hills. I was a little nervous this day since I didn’t grab any lights for my bike and I was running short on time to be able to get  to camp. Luckily I was able to speed over in time before dark. The areas around Cotopaxi were a little different than in the video from the descent – it looked more like desert. There was a cool small river going by the road that also went through our campsite that looked like the water was a gunmetal blue color. Soo pretty. We also got a beautiful red sunset that day.

The next day we rode into Salida, one of the cooler towns out of the whole trip. It was a very alternative, artsy kind of town – and also expensive. At this point I was trying to find a Colorado jersey (because CO is so awesome) and went into this store called Absolute Bikes and got them to give the group 10% off. I got this really pretty orange Monarch Pass jersey since we would be going over the pass the next day. After some Mexican food in a local restaurant and watching the world cup, we started making our way up to Monarch Mountain – the highest we would climb throughout the whole trip…

 

On the next blog post coming very soon! :)

Windy Kansas

Kansas started out with a bang. The first city we went to was Pittsburg, where we got a lot of hookups: first we got a yummy free lunch buffet at a place called Wheat State Pizza, got to stay at a nice school, and had local people in an MS group make dinner for us. We met a lady that had MS at the pizza place; she had a Yorkshire Terrier as a service dog, which really surprised me since you don’t usually see service dogs this small. She knitted red, white, and blue angel pins and gave one to each of us so we could wear them on our ride. After lunch we settled into a local school and listened to her touching story and battle with MS. You can see her popping a wheelie on her motorized wheelchair in BUSMS Episode 5. It’s always inspiring to see someone who is so cheery and determined despite such adversity.

A couple days later we would ride one of our first centuries into Cassoday! It sounds like a lot, but Kansas was getting flat by this point so it wasn’t too horrible. Here’s a video I took somewhere in eastern Kansas. You can tell it’s pretty flat but super windy, which makes riding so much harder.

 

The eastern side of Kansas has lots of open grasslands with cows in ranges and feedlots, but once you start heading more to the west the views turn more into endless wheat fields all around you.  So basically it’d go from this

     to this   

There weren’t many trees so you could see for long distances all around you – one of the ways to tell you were getting close to a town was from seeing faraway water towers. You would see them and think you’d be close but it’d take sooo long to get to them.

The winds at first were pretty mild but as we kept pressing on they kept getting more intense, culminating in one particular day being a little dangerous - the day we were riding into Leoti. That morning we decided to have a 25mi day instead of a longer one that was already scheduled. This brought much delight to everyone since we were all tired from biking 120 miles into Scott City the day before – another century! Anyway, during our ride to Leoti the wind gusts went up to almost 40mph! These were crosswinds that were powerful enough to push a couple of our cyclists off the shoulder. Add to that a ton of semis (we were riding through Kansas right in the middle of harvest so there was a lot of transport going on) that would suck you into the road as they zoomed by and push you back as they rode past you and you have a scary combination of forces pushing you all over the place in a small shoulder. We were all pretty happy it was a short day so we didn’t have to deal with that for too long, but it was pretty scary indeed.

Aside from that most of Kansas was pretty flat and uneventful, and people were very hospitable and friendly. One day Rose and I were biking to the park in Nickerson when this one woman called us over to say hi and talk to us about how much faith she had in God. While she got into a few weird details about her devotion (her family’s death would not bother her as long as she had faith), she was super nice, wished us a safe ride, and said she would pray for our safety.

All in all, Kansas was a nice state to go through: we got to ride through some beautiful open grasslands, drank wine as a group while we watched the sunset in Scott City, got a couple centuries done, met some nice people…if only it wasn’t so windy!

To close it up, a picture of another industry we got a peek of while riding through:

Oil drilling! These guys were a common sight.

 

Up next: Colorado!

Missouri

Missouri was one of the hottest, strangest, most challenging state that we’d come to deal with. I had never heard about the Ozark mountains before we hit MO and just recently having come out of the Appalachians I wasn’t the most excited to deal with more mountains. The Ozarks turned out to be one of the most beautiful and funnest (this should be a word) places we’d gone to.

We left Chester and entered MO and the first thing I saw was huge fireworks retailers. All of these places shroomed up right after the state line. These first couple days on MO also turned out to be some of the hottest so far. I also ended up getting a bunch of flats towards the beginning.

Changing flats - not as fun as it sounds

The first day in MO had us go into Farmingtown, where we got to stay at a sweet bike hostel that looked like an apartment as well as go to a waterpark in town which turned out to be a big hit – we lounged in the lazy river for hours, sometime clogging the flow of people with all of us linking our tubes together along the river.

The day after we made our way to Eminence. On the route we ended up spending some time in the Current river. After that day we got into another river and ended up climbing this cliff and jumping into the water from like 30 feet above – you can see people jumping off in Episode 5.

A few of us had to deal with random and weird MO people: some kid threw fruit punch at one of us, changed BUSMS signs around on us, and even had a disgruntled logging trucker chase a touring friend of ours while yelling and waving around an axe – you can’t make this kinda stuff up.

Pictured: MO style

Aside from the strange people, we got to see a lot of pretty rolling hillsides and mountains in the Ozark mountain range. The route leaders had been saying that by that point, after having gone through VA, we would be ready for the Ozarks. They turned out to be much more challenging than I imagined. There were lots of rolling hills and steep climbs that we had to get through. This also meant there were some nice downhills – I think it was at this point that people in the group hit highs over 50mph. I don’t go too crazy on the downhills so I’m sure I was nowhere near that.

Another nice thing that came out of MO was one of the most delicious breakfasts I’ve had in my entire life. I forgot what it was called, but I’ll always remember it.

BEHOLD. Delicious french toast goodness:

This guy had two slices of french toast with cream cheese stuffed in between. The bread was covered in eggs and corn flakes and fried to artery clogging perfection. This was topped off with whip cream, strawberries, and a side of sausage. This is the kinda stuff we eat on this trip – so horrible for the average person but delicious to us calorie burning, biking machines.

Well, that’s it for MO. Kansas coming up next!

Episode 5 – Carbondale, IL to Larned, KS

Kentucky and Illinois

Whew! It’s certainly been a while since I last blogged; I guess I’ve been getting caught up on the trip too much ;)

Before we get into the nitty gritty, here’s the 4th episode showing the ride from Hindman, KY to Carbondale, IL.

After my last post, we made it over to the Rough River Dam, where we stayed at a nice camping area by the dam. They had a really nice lodge with a buffet that left many of the cyclists paralyzed with food babies.

After that we made our way to Sebree, KY where we stayed at a church that had an awesome area for youth groups complete with a large TV, entertainment area..the works. The people at the church were also so generous that they made us a feast. It really hit me that day how generous people can be to cyclists and to our cause. At one point during the dinner they came out and explained more about their history of hosting cyclists (pictured).

There we met a few fellow TransAmers - a young couple, and one guy that was biking the TransAm on a mountain bike with a HUGE backpack on his back. I have no idea at this point how he's doing, but that kind of setup would make it really hard to ride day to day, I would think.

Soon after Sebree we were making our way into Illinois, one of the states that I had the best times in. In order to go to IL we had to get on a boat that would ferry us from KY into IL across the Ohio River. I was expecting it to be this really large river that would take us a while to cross but it ended up being way narrower and shorter than that. Still, it was a great experience to take your bike on a boat and ferry across. We were all pretty excited to be going into IL since we would have a rest day coming up ahead in Carbondale. Several of the cyclists are from Carbondale so we knew we would have a great time there.

After crossing the river into Cave in Rock, IL we were greeted by one of the cyclist’s family members with delicious fruits and drinks. We hung out there for a while – eating watermelons, having plenty of laughs, and letting the reality of being in a new state sink in. Later that night we had dinner at a local restaurant and explored the caves by the river shore.

After Cave in Rock we rode over to Carbondale, where we would stay a couple days and enjoy a poolside party and do some volunteer work during our rest day. The first thing we did during our rest day was volunteer yardwork for a local lady that had MS. I ended up washing her car and pulling some weeds mostly, while other people mowed the lawn, cleared ivy from the house walls, etc. Afterwards a few of us went to another house that had a ramp built on the front yard for another lady that had MS. Part of our fundraising money went to make this ramp. After taking pictures we headed back to where we were staying during our rest day – one of the cyclists parents house. There we caught up with much needed rest time, mostly spent watching the world cup, playing frisbee in the front lawn, splashing around in the pool (and starting an awesome whirlpool of over 30 people), and checking out the family’s farm animals (an awesome donkey named Bella and a couple curious goats). I had such a great time that day and in Carbondale in general.

The next day we got some yummy breakfast in town and were featured in a local radio station. We all said our names and where we were from and then a few of us took over and explained more about our organization and how the ride was going.

We then set out to make our way to Chester, IL – the home of Popeye the Sailor! The town is very proud of this fact, and have statues and images of Popeye in pretty much anything you can imagine. In the picture you can see how proud they are – as soon as you get into Illinois from Missouri you can see the welcome to IL sign as well as the welcome to Chester sign with a big ‘ole Popeye on it. It was pretty funny in an endearing way.

And that was actually the last time we would be in IL – sadly we only had a couple days in the state before moving onto Missouri. A bridge over the Mississippi River would take us into MO..where I’m going to be picking up on the next blog post. :)