WELCOME to Between The Lines

This is my chronicle of my occasional travels about the country. I started it in 2010 for my trip on my 2005 Harley Road King Classic for Big Daddy's Gulf Coast Gypsy Tour to New Orleans...Read below to find out about it! NEW REQUEST FOR READERS! If you are following this blog, sign in as a follower! That way I get to know who my audience is, which makes it more fun. Thanks!

In 2011 its the same destination, and its another Big Daddy Gypsy Tour, but on a different bike (my new Road Glide Ultra) and via a different route. This year is going to be in preparation for a 'Travels with Charlie' trip sometime in the future --so its camping along the way, and reporting as I have energy and internet connections.

Periodic posts will appear below, latest first. The
"Pages" down at the bottom have some information of more general applicability or interest. Enjoy! HippieDave

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

OK, its Wednesday so where do I start to catch up?

Awoke very early in Liberal KS, having gone to bed about 5 pm the day before....not that there is nothing to do in Liberal, but...

Hit the road about 6 a.m. under passably blue skies, with only some surrounding clouds.  Importantly: no wind to speak of. I started out with full winter condition gear  on though.  It was COLD.  After about two miles I encountered ground fog....not enough to obscure vision or anything, just pervasive enough to blend with the now completely overcast skies so as to create this feeling of being completely wrapped in freezing grey wool.

I'll say this for Southern Kansas roads.  They are straight!  No curves for these folks.  If they pitched, I'd bet it would be a fastball right down the middle every time.  This is also serious, industrial grade agriculture.  No waving fields of grain here.  There is no other way to describe the bleak bare earth fields, plowed and planted perhaps, or awaiting seed.  But virtually no crop growth is apparent.  there is also evidence of cattle, although I did not see vast herds.  One can periodically smell feed lots, but no cattle evident.  Passing through several industrial, silo'd towns...the principal purpose of which appears to be to collect the harvested result of the farming business...I note how completely inactive and empty they appear.  Abandoned run down buildings suggest failure;  however, much of it has the feel of seasonal inactivity.  Perhaps the beeves are in process and the seed is in the ground.

The beeves in process theory gets points as I pass huge factory buildings with names like "Acme
Beef Co." and note (it is imposssible to miss) the distinct odor of frying hamburger wafting across the highway....And I do not mean the pleasant aroma which may blow across from your neighbors backyard barbeque!  This is a rank, processing type smell that you do not want to linger over.

At around 9:00 a.m., I pull up in front of a diner located across from a silo farm and with nothing on either side.  It is the first eating-establishment I have passed (and having not yet breakfasted, I have been looking!)  The seed in the ground theory gets support from the fact that the diner is completely full of mostly round, mostly white middle aged men (one african american stands out strikingly against this background melee of caucasian chatter.) Plaid shirts, overalls, gimme caps prevail as the standard attire...the African American being no exception.  I feel like I have wandered into the radio set for Garrison Keillor's Chatterbox Cafe in Lake Wobegon, with its collection of Norwegian Bachelor Farmers.  Although no one is looking at me, they each are staring at me, at my motorcycle outside and, as I hang up my motorcycle jacket, at the fact that I am NOT wearing plaid or a gimme cap.  I stand there hoping to be invited to join the party, as there are a couple of tables with an empty chair.  But such is not to be.  After a few minutes, one older gentleman does wave for my attention, only to let me know that there is an identically sized room on the back of the diner, and that there are more tables back there.  Indeed there is and are;  there is also a great deal of peace and quiet, as I am the only diner back there.  The food was good, and plentiful however.  I had to apologize to the waitress for not cleaning my plate, and explain that when I ordered the hamburger patty and eggs special, I wasn't expecting an entire side of beef and a dozen eggs.

It is an old saw that one picks eating establishments by looking for the most local cars parked out front. That was certainly the way to do it in this little Kansas town, although to be fair, it was the ONLY place to eat for leagues around.  But it was clearly the gathering place for the local farmers/ranchers...probably representing 'spreads' which in fact were pretty spread around.  And the fact that they were all lounging around over coffee at 9:00 in the a.m. suggests that it was a down time of sorts for them.

In Ely Nevada I encountered a similar phenomenon..  There I had made a quick pass through town looking for a breakfast establishment with no luck, until I noticed that the parking lot at the local McDonalds was pretty busy.  Sadly, the local McDonalds appears to be the Chatterbox Cafe of
Ely.  One could identify through overheard conversation and intuition, local businessmen and shop keepers and ---I swear--two local attorneys each dressed to the nines in shirt and tie, dockers, ostrich skin cowboy boots and huge silver belt buckles, no doubt having been won as a prize in some important local legal contest.  OK, they could have been local used John Deere salesmen---it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.  But I like to think I encountered the local Ely Nevada bar at a power breakfast meeting at the local McDonalds.

Back to yesterday:  All went well across southern Kansas to Wichita, where I picked up I 35 N into Kansas City and a room for the night with an old friend.

Today, Wednesday, June 11 2014 broke sunny and clear, and hot and humid...in other words, a normal KC day.  Being an early riser, I snuck out, found a place for a quick breakfast, found a Starbucks for a cuppa and its wi-fi connection to do a little planning.  I have had to cancel a trip up to Iowa to visit an old friend from high school on account of delays, and I decide that as much as part of me wants to laze around in the balmy Kansas City weather, prudence dictates that I make hay while the sun shines.  (I hope you are not missing the way these agricultural homilies are creeping back into the old lingo?)  But, truly, I don't know what weather will hold down the road, so I might as well get scootin'.  One very important thing must first be attended to, however.  The bike is grossly dusty.  Inquiry determines that there is a self service car wash right around the corner, and that task is taken care of quickly.

With the bike at least presentable, if not in showroom condition, I then head for the local Harley dealer, which happens to be just a long five iron from where I am staying.  What is needed are extended mirrors.  The way I have planned this trip means there is one way to pack the bike...not just one efficient way, but only ONE way that all major pieces can be accommodated.  Unfortunately, not forseen, is the fact that --so packed--my vision aftward is obscured.  Safety and my disinclination to collect speeding tickets dictate that I be able to see behind me.  Harley Davidson has provided for this, and the dealer has them in stock.  Ten minutes later, tools packed back away and mirrors installed, I head back to my abode, pack up, provide hugs all around and hit the road for....well, somewhere east.

As the day progresses, the weather gets more mid-westy...that is, sort of permanently unsettled, overcast and basically grumpy--sort of like me.  I will not let it get to me though.  Today and the rest of the trip ---I am determined-- will be laid back, relaxed and without stress.  And so it goes.

In mid afternoon I cross the Missouri River going into St. Louie where Louis was once invited to meet at the fair, but never let on whether he went.  The Mizoo is impressive.  Only describable as quietly awe-inspiring, though, is the river one crosses as one exits St. Louis:  the mighty Mississippi.  It has a quiet ominousness about it, like a catapult permanently cocked and ready to fire, straining at the ropes, waiting to surprise.  It is massive.  I believe this makes it more impressive up at the St. Looey end than down in the Big Easy, where it just runs at will, seemingly uncontrolled and untamable,  but without the sense of foreboding one feels up north.

Crossing the Mississippi brings me into Illinois, despite my being under the impression (because of a unfortunate experience in fourth grade geography) that I am in Indiana.  Although I have an invitation to overnight in Chicago, I forego this so as to avoid the urban crush that our largest enclaves of civilization provide. Instead, I head cross-state, aiming to cross a.s.a.p into what really is Indiana and aim my cycle towards northern NY State.

Before I leave Illinois, though, I have to note how absolutely beautiful and lush it is.  Heavily forested landscape rolls away beside the highway, revealing acres and acres and still more acres of manicured fields of corn....some wheat, but mostly corn.  The corn is about as high as an elephant's shinbone, if that.  It is uniform in its color, height and impression of endlessness.  If you popped all of the corn in the fields I saw today, it would fill... well, something pretty big.  And everyone could watch every movie ever made twice, and still have popcorn to spare.

Carefully positioned on manicured lawns amid the fields are pretty little farmhouses of brick and carefully painted wood, which add to the Norman Rockwell-esque feeling of the surrounds. While it is most certainly the case, in today's age, that these fields are actually owned, tilled and harvested by giant agribusinesses, one cannot ignore the contrast with the stark industrialized landscape of southern Kansas.  This is a pastoral, rolling beauty wanting to be caressed and appreciated: The other is the ravaged and pillaged aftermath of a rapacious user.

I hunker down once again for the night and head off tomorrow for some destination northeast of here.
good night all.





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