Aug/091
Day 36 – Hot Day (79 miles)
Sometimes we are slightly…dishonest in the number of people who we say are staying in a motel room. This gets slightly confusing and worrying to the motel owner when the three of us all rock up to the complimentary breakfast at the same time. It got quite awkward this morning as the guy tried to stealthily check the numbers on our check-in form while making polite conversation. We managed to avoid getting charged the extra cash by being super-nice and talkative, something which doesn’t come naturally to any of us. The guy had an interest in electrical engineering so I fielded some questions as part of our whole being nice thing, while at the same time managing to trip a fuse by running the toaster and the microwave at the same time.
Outside we met some really nice people from Portland, OR. who were just passing through. One of the guys asked us about what we think of when we are riding. I asked the boys this ages ago and this is what we’ve generally been thinking about while riding:
Dowds – Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just switches his brain off and watches his pedals go round.
Me – Singing little songs in my head – really random music.
Callum – Cal had been using the time wisely by thinking about what he was going to do for a job when he finished the ride – pondering his future. When I asked this question we were about a week into the ride, so I asked him what he’d come up with. Here’s the strange thing: he wasn’t actually thinking about what he was going to do, he was just thinking this: “I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do”. Callum Reid’s mind – a very very mysterious place.
The chap from Portland looked at us strangely.
Off we went, back onto the 96.
Michael Dowds – Lad on tour
Today we had a stretch of road with no services for 58 miles. We stocked up on water at Tribune, KS and headed off to the Colorado border. On the way we met some younger eastbound cyclists who were doing a supervised trip across the USA. One of the laws of the tour so far is that whenever there are kids to laugh, one of us will fall off our bikes. As we stopped, Callum crashed into the back of my bike and fell slowly into the ditch. We all have our ways of coping with the flatness and dullness of Kansas – audiobooks and stuff like that- but Cal told us that he has been actively trying to hypnotize himself by staring at the gears of mine or Dowd’s bikes. As I said… a unique and mysterious mind. The eastbounders were asking if he was alright as we cycled up to meet them seemingly ignoring Cal in the ditch, but we weren’t worried cos we know the sounds that Cal makes and “oh…oh no” means he’s just done something silly but he’s fine.
Colorado has a good state sign.
We eventually got to Eads where there was a nice pool where we reckon they must have had a surplus of blue paint:
