Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Little Apple

Day 35 - July 8, 9:52 pm
80 miles. Lawrence, KS to Manhattan, KS.

So this was our cue sheet today.

1. Turn right out of hotel
2. Turn right onto Route 24.
3. Pedal Pedal Pedal for 80 miles.
4. Turn right into church.

One road, 80 miles. Yes, we're in the midwest. Rode with Clarissa today and it was honestly some of the fastest riding yet. She's pretty awesome and we get along well. Im just really attracted to her laidbackness and how forthcoming she is. Its kinda wierd to think shes 5 years older than me but how i never even think of that when talking to her. If she never told me i would've thought she was 20. Age is just so ridiculously arbitrary and it amazes me how little it matters in how people can connect. Its too bad it still remains such a silly barrier sometimes. LIke me, you may also be thinking of one age marker in particular.

We averaged almost 17mph for the whole day which i think is my highest yet. We got to lunch at 40 miles without even stopping once which was definitely a first. Neither of us had ever ridden 40 consecutive miles like that so that was cool. We had also never been on such insane flat ground without a headwind so yea.

Morning riding is the best. Traffic and temperature are so low and your energy is so high. By the time the sun came out in our last 10 miles, even I was having trouble with the heat. Guess who saw more corn today! Apparently all the wheat has already been harvested so thats no fun but 24 was actually a decent highway. In some ways, its nice to have many turns to give yourself small checkpoints and a false sense of accomplishment and such. But so long as the shoulder is nice and we can keep up a good speed, staying on one route and getting in your zone also works pretty well.

We found some abandoned train cars and climbed up to see the empty insides. Seeing an empty container is pretty much as anticlimactic as it sounds but it was still fun to see and climb the cars up close.

Its kinda personally funny to be in a town called Mahnattan coming from NYC myself, when its clearly not the most populated. In case you're wondering, Manhattan is actually a Native American term meaning roughly "Land of hills". Thats the only way i could see that the two towns would have the same name. Its apparently referred to as the "Little Apple"

Seriously though, could it be any harder to find a simple postcard. The gas stations were fruitless and the town book stores has all of these silly artsy cards. Its kinda frustrating actually because its just so counerintuitive. We have so little time to actually look for things like that and when you're riding it sucks to ruin your rhythm and take a pitstop for errands. Man, I've never wanted tacky gas station items so bad. You would think that a place like Kansas would want to show off itself at every chance it gets. Either way, I am confident that i will persevere and that through my cards all shall know of the great state of Kansas.

After getting to the church, four of us headed over to a local sprinkler park and basically did what every other 8 year old was doing. We ran around and screamed. Did some mothers pull their children away from us? Maybe. Hopefully not. it was an awesome sprinkler park though with so many cool colorful fountains and on such a hot day it must have been paradise for those kids. The only problem was the aimable squirt guns with which the kids decided to keep getting my attention with. For our pose we decided to go with Water Vixens. And by we i mean I. That might help explain the, how can i say, less than coordinated arrangement.

We continued walking into the main strip which was a typical college town strip for nearby Kansas State University. We walked into this store called Acme Gifts which is one of those stores that basically has all of those really witty and funny but utterly useless items like huge moustaches and peanut shaped erasers. It was sort of like Urban Outfitters except cooler and less gimmicky in my opinion. There were some fun girls there that were fun to talk to and that I joked around with about the store. Lets just say that I wouldn't have stuck around so long had they been guys...

Then i met the owner of the Store, named Diane, and had my world rocked. She was also apparently the owner of that Acme t shirt shop i wrote about in Lawrence as well as the original branch in Manhattan. I flipped out when i heard that and told her how i had legit said to myself how all i want to do is work there for the rest of my life. I could really sense something about her that I haven't seen in many other people and that immediately mesmerized me. You could tell that she just absolutely loved her work. I can't explain it but the way she spoke, her subtle facial expressions, her tone of voice and smile all just gave me the impression of extreme laidbackness in the best way, which is just so attractive to me. With a store like Acme her whole philosophy is how can i sell the coolest, funkiest things to people and i just find that so inspiring and beautiful. It was overwhelming actually how much that spoke to me. I can only hope for a career where i can pursue such a simple, fun goal like that. Meeting her and hearing her story and seeing how her personality was clearly the bedrock of her business was an unbelievable highlight. I could barely handle how inspired I was.

It disappoints me sometimes to think that people's careers and passions aren't always related. Its obviously one of things that just is and you can't really change all at once, but why does economic necessity have to so crushingly trump our personal fulfillment sometimes.

Great chicken dinner provided by the church which was much appreciated. We'll need it for our 100 mile ride tomorrow! I'll also need plenty of sleep for our 4:30 wakeup so goodnight!

Seriously, why do we even bother getting off our bikes sometimes.

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