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| Days 35-36-37
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Kansas was a wonderful ride and Missouri has started out well also. We canceled a day off in K.C. but still had time to visit the excellent WWI museum and Freedom monument.
We also left out the RV food in favor of KC BBQ at Fiorello’s.
 
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Kansas City WWI Memorial |
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Some of the most notable changes as we get further east:
- Smell of sweet corn... less cattle odors.
- Pretty wild flowers at the roadside.
- Lots of reptiles and amphibians, mostly as road kill. Snakes, turtles, frogs, and toads.
- Unfortunately, lots more trash at the roadside. Why do we need to throw out our garbage on the road? Riding the shoulder is becoming an adventure avoiding the broken glass.
- More cops! Marjie has been stopped twice since Lawerence, KS. Both times by young cops who only wanted to be sure she was OK. Polite, encouraging and reassuring.
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Flowers at roadside |
John in the corn "field of dreams" |
| A word about rumble stripes, those grooves in the pavement at the shoulder to warn you when you're about to go off the road. I'm sure that they have saved lives but they are not biker friendly if placed wrong. Several styles are popular. The bad ones are the narrow but deep ones on the shoulder that are like an electric shock if you go over them. There are wider but less deep ones that aren't so bad to ride across but take up so much shoulder that it's hard to find a place to ride. The worst are the ones that take up the whole shoulder and are 10 yards apart. You get a constant unavoidable jarring thud that hurts your feet, hands and butt.
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Rumble stripes |
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| Day 38
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Marjie writes:
Notes from inside the RV- Entry # 4
I'm in the driver's seat for pretty much the entire workday. Even all those cool pull off activities don't require me to leave the seat. From my perch, I maintain vigilance - watching for trucks and biker signals, scanning the landscape for pictures and photo-ops to document John’s ride. I'm patient. It's my job. Nevertheless, I look out the window and notice scenes unrelated to my assigned tasks. Some that seem to always catch my fancy and please me are:
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| Small side roads that go on forever even though they don’t seem to lead anywhere – very intriguing and existential these roads to nowhere...
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| ...Oil pumps that pop up randomly from a green background like ungainly birds. They come in several varieties just like birds....
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...Yellow canola fields are always spectacular
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...Single, dilapidated houses are just neat for some reason
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...and town signs have been very alluring for two reasons – they declare some hyperbolic motto that clearly no longer fits a mostly deserted town and they note the town population. Dannebrog, NE – "Danish Capital of Nebraska", Redfield, SD – "Pheasant Capital of the WORLD" and so on.
Towns are small. Signs indicate populations of a few hundred people and then I see my favorite – Wewela, SD, pop. 5. I hang around for an extended pull off, sure to meet at least one of the townspeople but I don't.
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Cows -
Since John has admitted to having whole conversations with them and suggests that horses do not show the same personality and the fact that at least one person has written in a dissenting view, I thought I would weigh in on this controversial topic. I have conducted a controlled study gathering significant data suggesting – cows win.
My research is too extensive to include here but I submit representative supportive data:
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"How ya doin?"
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"Where ya goin?"
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Cows fight and innocent bystander. Conclusion: cows are passionate.
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Cows get along with others
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"We have no interest in the biker or the RV person" |
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Again, it seems this sedentary job has a lot to recommend it: The end of the day brings a sense of accomplishment - the biker is hydrated and safe, the RV still works, state troopers question me only for a short time during pull-offs, no trucker has flipped me the bird. I can go to work without getting dressed. I have time to just look out the window, relax and enjoy or kick it up a notch to rigorously evaluate some aspect of the environment (I am sure that with just a little editing I can submit this cow/horse research for publication to some cow journal). Why would anyone not want to do this???
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A couple of job specific negatives:
- Maintaining a sitting position for 6-8 hours a day is not an effective exercise regime. I think my accelerator leg is developing shin splints. My left leg just hangs around.
- John is getting a glowing overall body tan as he pedals for prevention, while I have one red spot on my left cheek where the sun hits just that side of my face as we continue to drive south.
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"Out of the driver's seat....... she seems fine"
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| Days 38 - 39
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Some days start out crappy and get progressively better. We had to wait out the rainstorm in the AM from Sedalia. The sky looked like a tornado factory, which not only produced rain and wind, but a tail wind so I got wet and went fast. The road went through the Missouri River valley, which was partially flooded but still pretty.
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Missouri storm clouds |
Missouri Valley flooded fields |
 
The Mississippi floods The Way West statue |
Stopped in the town of Hermann. This was the cutest town, with nice old buildings, lots of German heritage, and neat wineries. Since it was Ester Wilson's (from Longboat Key) birthplace we had to have a wine tasting session in her honor.
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Hermann |
The day to St. Louis started off with the steepest hills since the Yukon. Thankfully they were short, but my knees said, "Hey, what's this. This doesn't seem like the Midwest!"
Indeed it’s not. We are across the Mississippi and officially in the East. The traffic tells me this as well.
As Forest Gump would say "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get." The RV Park is in E. St. Louis, one of the worst looking cities I've ever seen. Used to be horrible crime there, but now there aren't enough people to generate statistics anymore. Whole blocks with 'CONDEMNED' signs on the buildings and whole blocks with no buildings at all... worse than the South Bronx in the 70s.
The RV park is next to the Casino, which looks like an armed camp. Our RV spot is on the asphalt with no trees. Lady at the desk says no Wi-Fi, that we have to go to the hotel. We walk out into the 100+ heat to go to the hotel and are wisked away in an airconditioned security van to the hotel door. The man at the desk says no Wi-Fi, but he gives us a connection for the lobby and waives the $50 deposit for the equipment. The bellman was most concerned that we got what we need. Nice people are everywhere.
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Casino |
Desk staff and bell man
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