Last night was pretty wild. A major thunderstorm rolled through the area. There wasn’t any rain where I was but the wind was out of control. I thought the poles for my tent were going to break they were flexing so much. There was a point where I was trying to brace the poles by just sitting there with my arms holding them up. Luckily I got it under control by putting some metal steaks in the ground to anchor the corners and it was fine the rest of the night.
I tried to get an early start since I didn’t want to get caught out in the heat again so I was packed and on the road before 8. I went to Wendy’s for breakfast but all they had were breakfast burritos. McDonalds is still the best deal with their pancakes, eggs, biscuit, and hash brown. Luckily it stayed cool all day today and for the first time in Kansas I had a tail wind for the majority of the day. It was great to go fast again. I stopped in the town of Alexander and had some peanut butter. The town had a population of about 100 and it really looked deserted. It seemed like the only place open was the liquor store. Anyway, not much else happened until I met Chris from England. He was going from LA to New York and was planning on using the full 3 months of his visa for the trip. He kept complaining about the weakness of the pound. But as I rode away I heard the back tire rubbing against the break. So I removed the back break and once again am riding with only the front one. It shouldn’t be too big a deal since there aren’t any hills where I will gain enough speed that I would need both.
Kansas is extremely boring to ride through and I don’t think I took any pictures today. But I got to Dighton around 4:30 and found the park where I could camp. One good thing about Kansas is that they have a lot of community swimming pools and there was one right next to where I set up my tent. So I went over there to relax for a bit but it wasn’t very hot and I didn’t stay long.
After about an hour of lounging I went over to the gas station which was the only thing that was open where I could get food. While I was heating up a burrito, a guy named Chad started talking to me about my bike and what I was doing. We kept talking while I ate and relaxed. I figured he was just really bored since there really was nothing to do in this town except hang out at the gas station. He was 21 and just moved back to town. He offered me a place to stay at his place since the weather was supposed to get really bad. I met another lady at the gas station who had lost 34 years of her memory. Apparently her son died and her brain blocked out every memory of him along with an extra 34 years. Her husband divorced her after that and she had to relearn how to do everything. But luckily she married some other guy and he takes good care of her.
After I moved my stuff out of the park and into Chad’s I went back to the convenience store to get a case of beer to show my thanks. It was hailing on the walk over! It wasn’t big hail but it stung and was annoying since I was on the phone with my parents at the time and couldn’t cover up very good. But I was really glad that I was out of my tent and had a roof over my head. The gas station wouldn’t sell me any beer since it was Sunday so that was a complete waste.
Well it turned out that Chad was a complete creep. I don’t want to get into it over this blog but let’s just say I’m not going to be staying at any random people’s places anymore.
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