Friday, September 18---
Our planned stop in Kansas was the Barbed
Wire Museum in LaCrosse, which was going to determine our route through the
state. Checked online and the museum is
only open from May to Labor Day. Shoot!
Too late! But, now our route through
Kansas is wide open. So I’m checking
Roadside America and other sites to see what fun and unusual things we can see
in Kansas. Oh, the possibilities that
are out there before us…. J
The lid on Bernie’s trunk caught the wind
this morning and the cable snapped. Kim
said it was fixable and that he wanted to stop at the local Tractor Supply to
get the necessary items. I stayed out in
the parking lot to wash windshields…had extra time so I called my mom. I was still on the phone when Kim came out…he
had passed three women (one a TSC employee) who were struggling to assemble a
hitch car carrier and install it on a van.
By the time I was off the phone, Kim was involved. J Delayed our leaving a
½ hour or so, but helping out was the right thing to do….and besides we didn’t
have a very firm plan for the day.
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Roadside
America told me that there was an offbeat attraction right there in Raton. So we tracked it down…the RoboCop Miner
Statue, a 10’ metal sculpture paying homage to the New Mexico coal miner. It turned into a photo op for the little
monkeys.
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It was a downhill ride from New Mexico into
Colorado….crossed the state line at about 1 pm.
Day had started out sunny and cool but warmed up nicely before we left
the campground. I still needed to stop
and put on a long sleeve shirt…a warm day can become slightly chilly at 60
mph.
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We had decided to do some shopping in
Trinidad; back at the bikes, we were looking at the GPS to verify our route; a
truck pulls up and a man asks if we were lost.
No, just checking the map. I
asked if Hwy 160 would take us all the way into Kansas. He asked if we were going through Kim…a
little town about 72 miles away. Yes, we
were. He told us basic directions how to
get to 160 from where we were and then said that there was one bar in Kim and
it opens at 3:30 if we wanted to stop for a bit. If we did stop, tell ‘em Charlie said Hi.
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Been experiencing the ‘higher altitude,
faster breathing’ that happens in these areas.
I felt it today, while Kim claims to have been feeling it for a couple
of days now.
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At one point today, I thought ‘this road was
made for exactly what we’re doing’….cruising along with only a general idea of
our destination. J Little traffic…most of it oncoming, with
semis being a major presence until we passed the 389 Junction. That must be where the trucks picked up Hwy 160
on this route. The nearest town on Hwy
160 was Kim, CO, which was 72 miles away….nothing in between but miles and
miles of pasture and fields. The landscape didn’t change much but oddly, it
wasn’t boring. The road was easy and straight with the
occasional curve…but it didn’t have any shoulders so when we stopped we had to
stop on the road. That really wasn’t a
problem as traffic could be seen miles; plenty of time for us to get back on
the road. We saw cows, pronghorn and a
prairie dog. There was the occasional
driveway with a mailbox, which meant a house/ranch nearby. I wonder if the mailboxes were just for show
because it sure would be a lonely route for a mail carrier. J
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It is beyond me how a bug can squish on the
inside of my windshield or my googles, for that matter. Must be some sort of physics thing that I
never paid attention to. J
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| Kim giving Bernard a note for Charlie... |
Came to the sign for ‘Kim’ and, of course, I had to get a picture of Kim at the sign. Then he told me to look for the bar…he wanted to stop at the bar. Well, it’s past 3:30 so it should be open. But why are we stopping? So I can tell them that Charlie wanted us to stop and say hi. Lead the way, girl! Ohhh-kay! Well, it was harder for me to find the bar in a town with a population of 70 than one would think. I passed a building that I thought could be it but dismissed it as abandoned. Didn’t find any other options, so we went back and my opinion of an abandoned building held firm. Kim got off the bike and walked inside…I took pictures before heading in that direction. By the time I was done, an older gentleman was headed over from the house next door….it was the owner. The inside of the bar was small with a pool table and dollar bills tacked on the ceiling and walls. The bar itself looked to be more like a soda shoppe counter than bar; there was a magnet covered kitchen refrigerator behind the bar, keeping the beer cold. Well, Kim tells him of our conversation with this guy one back in Trinidad and that we thought we’d stop and tell ‘em that Charlie suggested we stop in and say hi. Kim gave Bernard a $5 and said when Charlie comes in next buy him a beer on me. Bernard said he thought Charlie would be stopping in tonight and was sure he'd appreciate the free beer. As the talk went on, I asked about the $1 bills covering the ceiling, walls and other available surfaces. He said that customers would write something on a bill and just put it wherever they wanted. Then sometimes they’d come back and try to find their particular dollar. However, he didn’t say how that all started. Anyway, I wanted to put a dollar on the wall…Kim digs one up…owner gives me a marker and the staple gun. I wrote “Charlie sent us” along with our names and the date. Bernard said he’d be sure to show it to Charlie when he came in. Put it in the open by the window so there’d be no trouble finding it….yet. By this time, Helen (owner’s wife) had strolled over and the conversation really took off. She asked about the bikes, where we’re from, etc., and got the scoop on why we had stopped. Oh, she knew Charlie... Anyway, they posed for a picture and we bought a hat before walking out of there. It was an hour break from riding, but we sure enjoyed it….and it all started because Charlie asked us if we were lost. **Before we left, Helen pointed out the car door that her father built into the outside wall behind the bar….complete with roll down window. It was just a plain wall from the outside.**
*Have been seeing tumbleweeds
of various sizes for the past week…came across a bunch of them piled up against
a fence. So, curious about what kind of
plant they are, I thought I’d do a Google search. I went to Wikipedia, read a few of the
beginning sentences and realized I didn’t really care to know about
tumbleweeds…there’s a reason I didn’t take horticulture in high school. J
No camping options on our route
today. KOA doesn’t have any campgrounds
in southeastern Colorado or southwestern Kansas….Helen and Bernard back at the
Trails End Bar told us “Oh, sure, there are hotels in Springfield…lots of
them”. Well, Google listed 5 and two of
them were listed twice. So we took a
room at the first one in town because it was time to get off the bikes. The name is the Stage Stop Hotel….and I feel
like it has one foot in the Old West and one foot in the present….and I fully
expect to see a cowboy come strolling down the creaky wooden hallway in the morning, his spurs a jinglin'.
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Observations from the road:
*Crows wings make an amazing
sound (they were flying low at the Raton KOA)
*My head itches under my helmet
at the most inconvenient times
Today’s mileage: 151 miles Total mileage: 2753 miles
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