The Thin Blue Ride - Top 25 Random Thoughts

Tuesday, October 8th, 2019

I believe it may provide the reader valuable insight into my cognitive processes were I to publish a sampling of random thoughts for your perusal.  Scary, I know.  But - silent waters run deep, and these thoughts have never been voiced - yet.  So suck it up and give 'em a read - you just might learn something.  One never knows from whence wisdom may flow.  Enjoy...

1. When you live in a space where the living room and kitchen lights have side by side switches, and the lights are only six feet apart, it is necessary that you like the person sharing that space with you.

2.  I'm tired of my legs aching every night.

3.  You really can survive with only six forks and six spoons.

4.  Kentucky dogs suck.  And its corollary, I hate Kentucky dogs.

5.  Your house shouldn't wobble when your bride rolls over in bed at night.

6.  Oreos and Hostess Cupcakes are the biblical manna and will be had for every meal in Heaven.

7.  Angels don't get fat.

8.  75% of one’s time crossing the country is spent climbing, the other 25% of one’s time is fun.

9.  Everyone will be riding bicycles in either Heaven or Hell, but not both.  I'll leave to the theologians the argument over which.

10. Planning is important - if one rides the Trans/Am one should either be a natural planner or take one along - I chose the later.

11. Best overheard conversation of the trip, “Be sure to lock the door and feed the parrot.”

12. Appreciate random acts of kindness when they happen.

13. Ignore random acts of stupid when they happen.

14. Bumpass is a great name for a town.

15. The entire country is made of hills and their larger variant, mountains - except for Kansas.

16. As a general rule, don’t believe Verizon’s claim that they have nationwide cell coverage.

17. As a general rule, don’t believe Verizon.

18. Never again in my lifetime will I be able to eat as much and as often as I did this summer.

19. I’ve heard Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a prayer” so many times that I actually once hallucinated while climbing and thought I was Bon Jovi.

20. The day I touched Delta’s front tire against the Victory Column in Yorktown, it was all worth the struggle.

21. Staying in one place for more than a day is thoroughly enjoyable.

22. All RV Parks are located next to one of the following: train tracks, airports, or interstate highways.

23. When you encounter road kill opossum in a car, you have just enough time to determine that it may have been an opossum.  On a bike, you experience all the subtle nuances of the dead opossum.

24. It should be illegal to put a spoiler on the back of a Volkswagen Beetle - even a new one.

25. One accumulates wisdom in many ways.  If time spent lost in thought is among them, bicycles make one wiser.

26. Bonus random thought:  Wisdom and riding a bicycle across the country are mutually exclusive.

The Thin Blue Ride - Part 3 Day 28 - Glen Carbon, IL to Manhattan, KS

Sunday, October 6th, 2019

Drive Report:  382 Miles / 5:41. This would be the most miles covered in one day in The Rig during the trip.  We were ready to get home and delaying one day by halving the mileage would have made us both antsy.  So, we were up, fed and on the road by about 0915 and arrived in Manhattan at about 1700 that afternoon.  Yes, I know that this totals 7:45, but to remain consistent I’ve always provided the reader Google Maps version of drive time rather than our actual.  There are three reasons for this.  First, The Rig doesn’t travel at anything approximating what the typical driver would consider to be “regular” speed.  Don’t misunderstand - when Susan is driving, we beat the Google Maps averages.  I, on the other hand, am a more cautious sort and lag considerably behind her speed and more than off-set her panic inducing efforts.  Second, I likely won’t be able to keep track of the actual drive time - speed induced anxiety being deleterious to accurate time keeping and all.  And third, I'm the one writing the blog - lest anyone have forgotten.  So there.

My apologies (again) for this post being late.  When we made it back to MHK, our neighbors to the East (who have been helping, among others, keep an eye on things while we've been galavanting about the country) invited us over for smoked pork butt, cowboy beans, potato salad and coleslaw.  I had no idea pigs smoked, but - YES - we'll be right over.  This, of course, brought about the necessary amount of yakking and prevarication concerning our trip.  (I shall leave it to the reader's devices who was doing the yakking and who was doing the prevaricating.)  And this meant that we got home too late for me to finish the post.  So - here it is today.

And speaking of posts, following this one, there shall be one more post in The Thin Blue Ride series before the author takes a sabbatical.  So, tune in tomorrow for my top 25 nuggets of wisdom gleaned from the ride.  However, I also reserve the right to post addendum as I see fit.  For example - when we make the pilgrimage back to Albuquerque to pick up the Moto Guzzi.  It was, after all, part of the series, so I feel some obligation to report on it. Likewise, the reader should feel an obligation to read it.  Just sayin...

Now that we're done with the housekeeping chores, here's the day in pics...

T&G live a mere 25 miles from Missouri, so it didn't take us long to get here.  Yes, I know that the reader has already seen a "Welcome" sign for Missouri, but we're on the last leg of the journey today, so there's some extra weight given to these markers.

Shortly after entering Missouri we were passed by this dude.  I have never seen a bike with that much rise.  The guy literally couldn't see the road for the gas tank and headlight.  You could see him looking to either side to drive it.  An aside - try sitting on the edge of your couch and get into the position he's in while driving that thing.  Bet ya won't last long.  The girl on the back, however, looked very comfortable.  Why shouldn't she?  She had a living bug screen.  Can you imagine what that guy's forehead looks like after a ride.  Just as he peeks around the gas tank - SPLAT.  I bet he carries a hankie...  

After looping to the NW of St. Louis on I-270, we found this.  OK - now we're rolling.  

Then it was these two cool iron bridges.  While I love 'em, I think the era of iron bridges is past.

This would be the Mississippi.  The last time I saw this I was headed into Chester, IL.  Not coincidentally on an old iron bridge that had seen better days - 25 years ago.  The river looks a bit higher now than then.  The reader should note that it's comfortably muddy.  Those clear mountain streams where you could see the fish were wearing on me.  Gimme a river where you can't see your hand 4" below the surface any day...

These two barns (?) I guess were right off I-70.  I dunno who those Shyrocks are (open the pic and read sign on the right barn) but they have good taste in barns.

Then it was time to pull into a gas station called "Pyro City" to fill up the tank.  Now normally if I were to tell a tale like this, there are at least some among you who would doubt my veracity.  I proffer this pic as proof (yet again) of my forthrightness and transparency.  But really, "Pyro City"?  There's something incongruous about a gas station with a pyrotechnic nomenclature.  Susan walked out with a huge pile of Black Cat firecrackers holding a lit punk between her teeth.  Good Lord!  And then she gets all cranky when I hit her with a blast from The Rig's handy fire extinguisher.  She says they sell 'em by the pound?  This was Missouri, BTW.  Figures...

We hit the road and before we knew it, we were rolling into Kansas City.  Fortunately the Chiefs game today had the late start and traffic wasn't too bad, even tho we went right past the stadium.

This would be the Kansas River.  Only the cool states have rivers named after them.   I checked and there's no "Texas River".

Plus - Kansas has Dwight D Eisenhower, war hero, President, golfer extraordinaire, driving force behind the Interstate highway system, the list goes on.  This is way better than Indiana bragging up Benjamin Harrison on their state line sign.  What'd that guy ever do?  And could anybody even name him before they read the sign?

Shortly, we pulled in at the Lawrence rest stop to change drivers and get three chocolate chip cookies at McDonalds.  I'll give ya three guesses who got two and who got only one.  I saw this info board there.  Having previously mentioned the Flint Hills, I thought I'd point out to the reader that purple section running N and S in the Eastern third of the state.  That's the Flint Hills.  Given how wide it is at the top, and that Manhattan sits at the widest point, it is clearly the predominant geological feature where we're headed.

They had this at the rest stop also.  I've heard of these.  I've believe it's a chicken of some sort.  Given what I've read about the decline in prairie chicken numbers and that I've never seen one of these before, I concluded that it must be a prairie chicken.  They're also kinda fat and pathetic looking.  No wonder they're in decline...

Westward ho - on to Topeka.  This is the state capital dome.  It looks a bit dreary right now.  Not too long ago it was re-cladded in copper and it retained its coppery sheen for a time.  Now it's starting to age.  At some point it will regain that green patina we all know and love. 

We're nearing the finish line now.  About a three mile section of I-70 lies in Riley County - where in my previous life I worked for RCPD.  So this is clearly my old stomping grounds. 

But to get there ya hafta take the 313 exit to see this...

The Bill Snyder highway.  If ya hafta ask - well...don't.  Just Google it.  He was apparently a great slayer of prairie chickens and is almost single handedly responsible for their disappearance and near extinction in the fall of each year.

This is a great shot and a pretty sight all at the same time.  Highway K-177 just topping the last hill before descending into the Kansas River Valley where Manhattan is located.  It is also the site of the highest speeds ever reached on a bicycle by yours truly and the Mrs.  Twice on my single bike I hit 59 mph on this downhill.  Once with Susan on the tandem.  On both occasions we had a significant tailwind.   My all time high speed is on the tandem - by .1 mph.  On that occasion we coasted all the way to the viaduct over the Kansas River and the Manhattan City Limits - some 3 miles distant.  

Finally, we're home.  Well - almost...

OK - now it's official.  We walked in and Susan said the house smelled funny.  I told her it wasn't me.  (Susan read this and said, "REALLY!  That's our big ta-dah!!")

Author's note:  I'm just not a big ta-dah kinda guy, I guess.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the final episode of The Thin Blue Ride.  (Barring, of course, any future addendum.)

Till next time.