Monday and Tuesday – It’s All The Same To Me
I left New Stanton, PA at 7:30 a.m. and began the tedious trek across the nations mid-section. The personal goal was to get as far west as possible. The bulk of the day was spent running from gas stop to gas stop and creating new seating positions to relieve stress on my own mid-section. The most effective was simply standing for a mile or two.
Other than motorcycle yoga I did goof off with the camera a bit.
There were, of course, the occasional thunderstorms. The one below I had been warned by eastbounders that I had about ten minutes of torrential downpour ahead of me. They were not exaggerating. When I lost sight of the tractor trailer 50 feet in front of me I stopped under the next overpass and waited it out. Several vehicles pulled in behind me. I’m not sure if it was because they meant to pull over or because all they were doing was following my tailight. The early warnings were right. About 10 minutes later the bucket loads gave way to a steady shower and I was back on the road.
I hit the Kansas version of Kansas City at dusk. Either my cycle aerobics were paying off or the Advil was kicking in because I still felt pretty good. Too good to stop. I decided to keep rolling until the crouching tiger/squatting bear contortions no longer eased the pain. Getting approximately 3 hours between each refill, it was almost midnight when I rolled into the rest stop. I still felt good. At this point I decided to just keep going. The weather was perfect, the air was dry and cool, traffic was light to non existent. It was later on at one of the rest stops that a trucker came up to me asking if I had a deathwish. My perplexed look must have been an obvious clue to my not so obvious cluelessness. He proceeded to tell me that my chances of making it out of Kansas in one piece were 50/50. This was not due to weather or a drunk driving convention in town but rather due to the deer population. “Ain’t you seen the blood stained road and the pieces of meat hangin on the guardrails, Boy?”, he asked in a way only a long haul trucker could. “Well, yea”, I said. “But I’m following you so the path is clear, right?”, I followed up. Off he went, mumbling something about the crazy, damn fool yankee. I’d been called much worse.
Needless to say, I kept a close eye on the sides of the road for the rest of the night and on into the morning. I don’t have any pictures of Kansas. I entered it in the dark and left it just as dark. Close your eyes…now press on your eyelids…that’s what I saw of Kansas. I did see some lightning produced silouettes as I dove for cover at about 3:15 a.m. Tuesday morning. No pictures of that either. I tried to get a video of it with my phone but it came out looking like the previous suggestion of pressing on your eyelids. Only this time, do it while standing in the shower with a big fan blowing on you . Have someone flick the light switch on and off quickly to simulate the lightning.
I rolled into the first Colorado visitor center at 6:00 a.m. They were closed. The air was cold, I’m guessing in the low 40s, and the fog was heavy. It was that thick fog that leaves you just as wet as if it was raining.
The fog eventually began to burn off as I headed toward Black Canyon of the Gunnison. That would be the final destination of a very long day. From 7:30 a.m. Monday to 7:30 a.m. Tuesday I had travelled 1,398 miles.
…and without even a trace of deer carcase on me.
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