Goodbye Kansas!

7 AM, directly into the 20 mph+ wind for 3 hrs. Not very fun. 2nd grade science question: what direction am I traveling?

My campsite Saturday night in Cassoday, KS.

This picture is pretty self-explanatory:

So Sunday night I'm riding along, and it's getting dark and I need a place to pitch a tent for the evening. I'd heard from several other cyclists that they'd had a lot of luck camping out in churches. I was too far from Chanute to make it before dark, so I decide to pull off the road in Benedict, KS, population 100 or so. After riding through town, I pull up to the dilapidated church that 3 men are at, working in the yard. After asking if I could pitch my tent they eagerly agreed. I was soon introduced to the three men who had just purchased the church, moved from Wichita, and were hard at work restoring it. The pastor, Joe, with a large belly and dirty "Jesus Lives" t-shirt was the clear leader and had bought the church and property for $4000. The youth pastor, Dale, had wild hair and lazy eyes and was eager to talk. James, with the full head of hair and bushy beard just didn't say much at all.

They proceeded to eagerly show me around the church and the work they were doing. It was actually a really neat old church, dating back, from their estimates, to the "John Brown days". They were all living in the church while restoring in and, as could be imagined, it was well lived in. They showed me the bell tower, pews, and the secret trap door used for "hiding slaves". Piled in the middle of the room where they were living were huge stacks of 50 lb military issue powdered milk. There must have been literally thousands of pounds of this powdered milk. Where they got it, I don't know, but they said that they'd put it in 5 gallon buckets and ship it to "people in need". So, if you know anyone who really needs hundreds of pounds of powdered milk, you know who to call. The ironic thing is the following morning I ran out of powdered milk. I was too timid to ask them for some, so I just bought a box in the store the following day.

I didn't really start getting weirded out until Pastor Joe started telling me about his friend's "prophetic dream". Apparently he had a friend in Wichita who had a dream where "seven fat dairy cows" came out from the ground or river or something like that. They were soon followed by seven skinny cows, who, if I'm remembering it right, ate the dairy cows. For those who know your Old Testament, this is quite similar to Pharoah's dream that Joseph correctly interpreted as foretelling of a period of 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine. The only significant difference I could tell between the dreams, if I'm remembering it all right, was the significant detail that Pastor Joe's friend's cows were "dairy cows". His friend in the dream asked "Lord, is this similar to the seven years in Joseph's dream?" The Lord replied that it didn't signify seven years, but seven MONTHS! Seven months until some great famine, or economic collapse or the end of the world. I couldn't quite gather which exactly is supposed to happen in 7 months, and I'm not sure when the dream was had and when we're measuring from, but the general gist of the story was that something bad in 7 months. Apparently, we've had four of the five signs that the end is coming (wars, weird weather, a couple others I forget). The fifth, economic collapse, is just around the corner. I gathered from his telling that this was a significant factor in Pastor Joe & Co.'s decision to flee Wichita for the dilapidated church in Benedict. As he's telling this to me, especially when he got to the part about the "seven dairy cows", I really had to exercise some significant self control to not start laughing. I don't think he would have been too pleased if I started laughing. So I just patiently listened until he was done, knowing better than to disagree. I then politely declined their offer for me to sleep in the church, and left early in the morning. The only picture I took was this one in the church. Pastor Joe and Dale are on the right. I'm bummed I didn't take more. Oh well.

One of the 5 turtles I rescued yesterday. In addition to the 3 from the day before and the one from several days ago, this makes a total of 9. Turtles sure like to pee when you pick them up. Having run out of ninja turtle names the day before, I had to start being a little more creative. The five yesterday I named Tammy, Timmy, Tommy, Tara and Ridgeback. I'm not sure which this is.

OK. So yesterday was a nice, fun, long, hot day. I didn't see any other cyclists. A lot of interesting things happened, though. I ate granola before riding and leaving Benedict, McDonald's breakfast at 9 AM, big Sonic burger at 3 PM, and huge Arby's meal (roast beef sandwich, curly fries, mozarella sticks, cherry turnover and soda, all for $5.95!) at 8 PM or so. I think I set some sort of record for amount of fast food in one day. I think I may tone it down a bit. While riding along highway 7 into Girard, I look on the side of the road and what do I see: a 100 dollar bill!! I naturally scour the ditches for more, and find an envelope near the bill with a name written on it: Chadd Spensel. While in Girard I scoured the phonebook, trying to find Mr. Spensel, but to no avail. So I guess my motel room last night got paid for! I also lost a sandal off my bike (my nice new Chacos! :-( ). Also, in Pittsburg they have a really cool community waterpark with slides and a tubing river that I swam in for only $3.25!

So, today I'm taking it easy. I just going to ride 33 miles to Golden City where there is a biker hostel that's supposed to be nice. After just a few miles I leave Kansas and enter Missouri!! I'll stay there tonight, and get a good early start for a long day tommorrow! Thanks for all of the encouragement and comments!

Da zveedanya!!