Day 24, Dodge City, KS, 52 miles

It's Kansas. Looking out to the horizon as far as the eye can see is..... nothing. And when I see beyond that, there is more nothing. Well, maybe not nothing, nothing. Some things do show up again and again- perhaps they form the visual white noise that is nothing in Kansas. There are those insect irrigators crawling across the cornfields turning the brown to green. The brown is spotted with oil pumping rigs, suggesting that there is something of value under the grand, if not on it. There is cattle on the range, lots of cattle, even some long horns. Their lives then move to the stock yards where they are brought in off the range to be fattened up. The stock yards are amazingly large, running for miles along the road. They extend far beyond the distance we can hold our breath. This is very unfortunate since stockyards stink. They stink really bad. Really, really bad. It's hard to imagine how that stink turns into steak. So I guess if one pays attention, there is more than nothing in Kansas.

Today's ride was a delightful 52 miles, which gave us time to stop and read historic makers and see other sights. (Except Bill, who is very fast. On short days, he eats breakfast at our departure hotel and bullets to the next hotel to have a second breakfast before they stop serving at 10.) Grain silos towered over Cimarron, the last town before Dodge City. Cimarron is the home of Clark Drug and Ice Cream Parlor. "The real thing," it had an old fashioned soda fountain counter which we sat around and drank "Oprah Shakes." Seems she had been there and that was what she ordered. But Jeff wants to know why "Oprah Shakes"? Why not "Jeff Shakes"? She'd come in a car, big deal. He'd ridden a bike from San Francisco to get a shake! So the owner changed the name on the big board behind the counter to "Jeff Shake."

Dodge City itself is not a place you would plan your vacation around. imho, it is not even a place that a family in a car with broken air conditioning, three kids screaming in the back, and a carsick gerbil would detour 5 miles for a cool drink. But US 50 cuts right through Dodge City, our hotel is on US 50, and I can tell people that I ate at the Applebees in Dodge City and really liked it. (The trick being the ambiguous modifier. It was the Applebees that I really liked.) There are two pseudo-western main streets. The "free one" is mostly deserted, has a lot of empty stores (like "Jimmy's Acoustic Coupler Repair" and "Eight Tracks to Go"), but provides no place to eat or drink. The "main street" that is part of the museum and costs $7 is pretty similar, except that the defunct stores used to cell buggy whips or the wheelright shop. We are going on an excursion to "Miss Kitty's Saloon" (remember Gunsmoke?) which is supposed to be a little hokey, but much fun.

Good news: Bob, our fallen rider is ok. He posted on his blog to let us know that he had a fractured skull, but aside from that was doing well. Thank God for helmets. He'll be going home in a few days and visit us when he ride through his town in a few days.

The ride is starting to grind through riders. There have been visits to doctors, Medimerge, or even the ER for saddle sores, stomach issues, dehydration, minor cuts and abrasions. Fortunately, I haven't been there yet.