Head and crosswinds all day today and yesterday. I feel like each day we have done a century, maybe a double century. Tough. Solomon was falling asleep the last 10 miles yesterday. I kept having to knock him on the helmut to make sure he was awake. "I'm fine, Dad!" he says in that don't bug me voice.
The towns along 96 are either dead or dying. Farmers sold their water rights and left to live somewhere else and the land is reverting back to the high desert that it once was. Little grows. Then the railroad pulled out. Jobs left. Up and down Main Street (or Maine Street as one was spelled), there are beautiful brick or stone buildings with boarded up windows or simply a "closed" sign. Hard to imagine these towns reviving. Maybe they can harness the wind energy that is prevalent here and sell it. I doubt it. They are just going to fade away. I imagine that these towns are microcosms of what may happen to large cities and vast areas with global climate change. Cities whose thin lifelines of water are going to have lots of trouble when rain and heat patterns change. Since global change doesn't personally affect me yet, these towns give me pause to think of how our lives might change. We know NYC is in trouble from rising sea levels. How about L.A. which survives only by water imports?
So what do I think about for 7 hours a day on the bike fighting headwinds, watching a road that rarely curves, viewing scenery consisting of a few sunflowers, and lots of dead mice and snake. Solomon, "Was that snake/mouse/deer/snake/rabbit/bird/bird killed by a car?" "They were all killed by cars." Here's what I think about. I quiet my mind, be in the moment, and concentrate on my breath as I ride. It is true meditation. I love it. It lasts a maximum of 45 seconds. So what do I really think about? Mostly I think about my cyclometer. Am I going fast enough? What time is it? What's my average speed now? We'll never get there at this rate. Yes, it is the curse of the cyclometer. I get gobs of information, but like much technology, it has ceased to be a tool for me and -you know the rest of what I'm going to say. At least the cadence function isn't working because there's a bad splice in the wire. I'm not going to fix it.
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3 comments:
Hi All
I've been enjoying immensely your blog but haven't sat down and written you a comment yet. I thought about you guys ridding through Kansas a lot this evening. I rode to Winters at 6:00pm to listen to a talk about the hydrology of Putah Creek. Left to come back to Davis at 8:15. We have been having wonderful clouds the last few days and this evening was spectacular, with streaks of red and orange above the dimming gold of the coast range. All this above a sea of sunflowers as I spun down Putah Creek road. Something like a cross between Albert Bierstadt and Phil Gross. Not a car passed me as I sped past rows of tomatoes and mown wheat fields. Soon it will all be stripped bare by the tomato picking machines and the road will be strewn with tomato carcasses.
I hope you have tail winds of cool sweet air all the way across Kansas. Take care and ride well.
…leo
I thought I would let you know that this weekend, July 13-15, in Hutchinson, Kansas the "Crossroads of American Bike Rally" is at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in the middle part of Hutch. It is the new Kansas version of Sturgis, but on a smaller scale. I know Djina has talked about a fascination with the motorcyclists, and it could be a fun activity as well as possibly a good place to get large groups of people to sign the petition. I keep seeing it advertised in the paper and think of you guys, and I finally remembered to write.
Tammi- We've been meaning to call you. Thanks for the info. We will be in Hutchinson on the 15. Leave me you phone # on my cell phone (530)848-7277 or e-mail us at ariel@dcn.org.
See you soon, Djina
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