Parsons, Kansas

 

As the sky darkened ahead I wasn’t overly concerned, as I’ve had several occasions already where the black blot on the horizon bypassed me or didn’t amount to more than a few sprinkles.  There’d been a few intermittent showers during the night as a northerly wind took over from a southerly.  I was hoping that would be the end of the precipitation, but the northerly was still having its way.  It was 51 degrees when I broke camp and rather than the temperature rising as day came on, it continued to fall from the high of 88 the day before.  

It was 47 degrees at noon and 44 an hour later when I began to feel a few drops of rain.  I held off putting on my Goretex jacket for a few minutes, until my hopes for just a few stray drops were being dashed.  The wind was whipping at better than twenty miles per hour making putting on the jacket a tricky endeavor.  Rather than growing darker the sky closed in on me.  With the strong wind I couldn’t hear vehicles coming up from behind except when they swung wide and passed over the middle-of-the-road rumble strips creating a mini-roar.  I was surprised when I heard such a roar but no vehicle came around me.  Moments later I knew why when it was accompanied by a blast of lightning.  It was the first of several as the storm demonstrated its might, with a couple of strikes near enough to genuinely startle me.  

The storm was growing nasty.  I was headed east and the strong wind from the north was blowing the rain almost sideways just soaking the side of my pants, at least at first.  As it came down harder, my pants were getting soaked all round.  After a few minutes the rain turned to small pellets of hail and started accumulating on the road.  It was twenty miles to the next town with no hope of any shelter to be found in the wide open, barren plains.  If it didn’t let up I was in for a miserable and perilous hour-and-a-half or more. My only hope was to pedal with as much vigor as I could summon to generate enough body heat to stave off hypothermia.   I kept waiting for the occasional pickup truck that passed me to pull over and rescue me. 

Experience has taught me these bursts of meteorological fury generally last just a few minutes.  That was the case once again, but the wind persisted and so did a light rain, not allowing my soaked pants to dry.  If it had been ten degrees warmer, it would have been more manageable, but with it in the low 40s I was struggling to stay warm.  I just hoped the town ahead, Eureka, was large enough to have a motel.  If not, the next town was another thirty miles away.  If the rain would stop, I could put on dry leggings and be happy to continue another thirty miles.

When I arrived in Eureka, I was greeted my a motel with a sign advertising rooms for $52.  But there were no cars on the premises and no one was answering the doorbell.  A closer look revealed all the signs of it being closed down.  I was cold and wet.  I headed into town ready to stop at the first business and ask if there were another motel.  I came to a feed store that looked open.  When I tried to dismount from my bike I couldn’t lift my rain soaked right leg over the cross bar, catching my heel causing me to fall backwards, my head hitting the pavement and my bike falling on top of me.  If I weren’t wearing a helmet I might have suffered a concussion.  No one saw my calamity, as no one was in the store.  I proceeded a few more blocks to the downtown and was relieved to see the sign for a hotel beside an old four-story building.  But it too was closed down.  

I could see the neon sign of a Casey’s General Store a few blocks down the street. Before I came to it I passed the Carnegie Library that I had come for, presently vacant.  The older lady at the cash register confirmed the motel was on hiatus, as the Indian owners had returned to India.  But I had a choice of two other motels.  One was a mile away and had a swimming pool out front.  The other was a few rooms a restaurant/bar rented out.  That was closer and no doubt more of a bargain.  

A party of somewhat boisterous women filled a long table in the restaurant.  The bartender said that yes he had a few rooms available in back.  I couldn’t get a key fast enough.  I had to return though because I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heat.  He accompanied me back and demonstrated the trick to turn it on and showed me an auxiliary heater that was much stronger than the other. If I had figured out how to operate the obvious heater I never would have known about the other, which made a considerable difference. I shed my wet clothes and stood in front of the one blasting out heat for several minutes.  It was a while before I dared to take a shower and douse my numb extremities with hot water.  In the meantime I spread out clothes everywhere to dry and rigged up a clothes line with my bungee chords.

I was disappointed to be ending my day early after fifty-five miles, especially when I thought I had a chance for a hundred mile day with a favorable wind.  At least I gathered two Carnegies, the first in El Dorado an hour before the storm moved in.  It was now home to an architectural firm—Gravity Works.  Unfortunately it was a Saturday and no one was in to explain its name.  Right across the street was a Statue of Liberty in the corner of the square block housing the county courthouse. Bobby Douglas, a left-handed, running quarterback for the Bears in the ‘70s, grew up in El Dorado.

I hadn’t had a short day since I had started, so an abbreviated day would be good for my legs.  The forecast called for one more day of a tailwind, so I’d be a tad rested to be better able to take advantage of it.

The day dawned sunny and all was well with the world with the wind with me all day. I could fully enjoy my day on the bike, knowing I’d be setting up my tent with a century under my belt, which I exceeded by nine miles while gathering three Carnegies and another Statue of Liberty.  I crossed the southern extremity of the Flint Hills, which was marked by a historical marker specific to this stretch.  

It came before the first Carnegie of the day in Yates Center, shrouded in trees on a block all to itself a block from the town center and its courthouse.  It was the only one of the day still serving as a library.  Its inscription was a simple “Library” on its facade above the entry.

As I headed thirty miles south to Chanute I began seeing armadillo carcasses along the road.  And a little later pecan orchards.

The Chanute Carnegie was now a Justice Center.  It had an addition and no indication that it had once been a library.  A guy who had stopped in on a Sunday was unaware of its origins.  The only library he knew of that the town had had was two blocks away in an old train depot it shared with a museum.

I had ninety-six miles for the day when I reached Parsons and its exemplary domed Carnegie, now the Carnegie Arts Center.  The twin doors to its entry had a plaque on each, one reading Carnegie Library 1909 and the other Carnegie Arts Center 1996.

A mile away on Main Street a Statue of Liberty stood off to the side of the Parsons Middle School, which had been the high school when the Statue was erected in 1950.

I headed out of town intent on at least another nine miles to get my Strava mileage for the week up to 490 miles, an average of seventy a day, the fewest of these travels with strong headwinds most of the week restricting my mileage.  I couldn’t remember what my biggest day on Strava had been since I joined the community three years ago, otherwise I would have tried to exceed that.  Evidently it was more than 109 miles, as at day’s end I didn’t receive congratulations for a new best effort.  Hopefully I’ll have another day of tail winds to make another attempt.