Hello,

Cindy asked me to post a couple of remarks about our ride across the middle of America. Below are a few snippets from letters that I wrote to my children. I hope it provides you, the reader, a slight tangy flavor of our bike tour.

Ken

. . . Florence, Oregon. Our ride begins with the ritual dipping of rear bike wheel into the Pacific ocean. Off we go . . . The ride through the most western part of Oregon began with an easy 54 mile ride from Florence to Lows Pass, mostly easy pedaling.

. . . Prairie, Oregon. Stay at B&B. Riding to East of town. A working ranch, and, as you might imagine, rustic and simple. No internet! It's definitely cowboy country, where people reply, "Howdy" to my "Hello". Cowboy hats are worn everywhere. We thirsted for beer and went to an old fashioned saloon, filled with cowboys wearing Levi jeans, looking, dusty, dry and leathered from outdoor work, and wearing shit-kickers with shit. The bar was the long wooden type you see in old 50‘s western movies and TV shows; guys leaning over the bar, or turned facing round with their feet up on a brass rail, and a working spittoon close by. The decor was wagon wheels, old-fashioned laundry machines, oxen whatcha-ma-call-its; the walls were covered with huge multi-pointed elk and deer, and bear hides. The only detraction from the ambience from the beer and hard liquor watering hole was the counter filled with delicate teas, coffee, breakfast rolls.

The dinner special was "BBQ meatballs" (whaa?).

. . . Yesterday's ride took us through the Badlands. Signs posted along the route carried warnings that animals “carry the plague”, “use lots of DEET”, and “don't leave the posted highways for your own safety!”. The landscape was eerie, with pock-marked muddy mountains, scattered table top hills sprouting up on the floor, and water running white; not blue, brown, or grey. Not a soul could exist here, unless it was corrupted.

. . . We stayed at a simple motel/hunter's lodge, and except for our room, the remaining 11 rooms were filled with hunters. I asked a small party of camouflaged, overweight, over-gunned, but fun guys what they were doing. "Hunting prairie dogs - FOR THE FUN OF IT", they said, ". . . doing it for years." The sport of kill! Oh, go grow up, why don't you! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Shots fired evening long, everywhere, every direction. Forth of July!? . No, lots of dead prairie dogs. A wild existence lived in White Water. Population: 467.

. . . Today's ride was hot, and tomorrow is sure to get hotter tomorrow. The roads are in good shape, lightly traveled, and visibility good. I crossed the James River and the Missouri River, exciting to me as it stirred childhood memories of cheap paperback western novels, and writers, such as Zane Grey.

. . . Arrived along the shores of the Mississippi today. Riverboats, barges, parades of old mansions along the shore made it exciting . . . and stories and history lessons flood my mind . . . Oh, the mistake Napoleon made in 1803 selling the land West of the Mississippi for only 11 million US dollars. I think it encompassed nearly 900 million acres of land . . . all that Iowa corn, South Dakota and Wyoming oil and gas, and the National Parks that we got to experience from the perspective of a slow bike rider.

Ken