The world is full of magic… patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B.Yeats
“Toto,… there is no place like home,” however, escorting the golden sunrise across the Kansas wheat fields… AWE-inspiring. Over this Fourth of July weekend I followed my own “yellow brick road” the Transamerica Bike Trail (Route76). I pedaled 250 hazardous miles from El Dorado, Hutchinson, Lamed, Ness City and finally to Garden City, Kansas. I’m on my way to the Emerald City (Pueblo Colorado).
Trekking down this tornado alley Gnomeboy and I drafted behind a mammoth John Deere tractor until the Munchkin farmer from Lollipop land parallel parked the monster in front of an aging Dairy Queen. Like they say, “Nothing drives like a Deere.” East of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge a roving pack of oversized red combines harvested winter wheat, while I cropped their photograph for my blog.
Out on the American prairie, flags ripple from trucks, trains and flagpoles. Located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains and the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states (Smith Co.), Kansas radiates red, white and blue. Born during the Civil War, the 34th state is a phat, flat breadbasket, baked inside a very harsh climate. Freedom is not free bumper stickers, and silver truck nuts chawed out, “Scarecrows need not apply.” This week Kansas encountered floods, tornadoes, and hail but side stepped locusts, drought, and blizzards. I’m hoping to dodge the lions and tigers, “Oh my.”
I am in AWE of Kansas’s mountainous harvest, a by-product of loamy, sandy soil. Hutchinson built a grain elevator one half mile long that holds 46 million bushels of grain. I included a picture of the grain elevator at Tennis, Kansas for grins (pic below). The colossal corn crop last fall filled every Kansas silo. With the elevators still brimming, co-ops piled up the monumental winter wheat harvest on the Tarmac (pic below).
While America anticipated an unflawed Independence Day birthday party, I expected afternoon fireworks from Kansas’s violent weather. During the morning, mild mannered winds swept by without an up draft. Dodge City, twenty miles from Lamed (pic below), is the windiest city in the United States with an average wind speed of 14 mph.
The afternoon heat index topped 100 outlawed degrees. The humidity added oppressive weight to the air. The Route 66 Bike Race cancelled because of the unpredictable, dangerous weather. By late afternoon Mariah, they call the wind Mariah out here, thundered by at 30 miles an hour (pics above). Dark thunderclouds resembling flying monkeys warned me of danger while trekking through this land of Oz. Shelter on the open prairie could be and hour’s ride away.
Dorthy was no where to be seen as these horrific cumulonimbus thunderclouds cycled by every afternoon.“I do believe,” she escaped somewhere over the rainbow. The torrential rains saturated this flat land, and the creeks overflowed. One thousand acre lakes temporarily surfaced (pic below) and flooded some state roads.
For three days I rode with Multiple Sclerosis Bike across America. As the day progressed, their menagerie stretched out into five or six riding groups. I stopped for daily photo ops and read the historic markers. And so would eventually bike and chat with the entire group. Each rider raised several thousands dollars, and then spent three months biking coast to coast. Erne remained my favorite rider (pic below). He impersonated Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow, in the Wizard of Oz.
“My wife thinks I’m crazy! No brains!” He mimicked his wife’s sigh, “to try and bike across the country at your age.” He turned 60 this year. He smiled and joked all day long. In the picture below Erne was halfway home, with his bucket list slowly getting shorter.
The group had two assigned SAG stops each day. On Sunday, all twenty riders stopped for an hour’s rest at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge (pics below). With the storm monkeys screeching, I resumed riding after a five minute photo op. That afternoon Mariah raced across Kansas from the Southeast to the Northwest. “ I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too,” she wailed!
Traveling due west on Rt.19, I outpaced Mariah to Lamed, as her lighting flashed and her thunder ripsawed. An hour behind, my companions were drenched and pelted in that witches’ brew east of Lamed (pic below). However, no cyclists were sent flying like Miss Almira Gulch to Munchkinland . The picture below was taken while safe and miles west of Mariah’s fury. After surviving the hail storm, the MS crew were more adamant about avoiding Mariah’s AWEather fury.
Patriotic Garden City put on a great, July Fourth spectacle as sorcerers’ apprentices exploded firecrackers, detonated munitions, and blasted off Roman candles. The navy-blue cosmos smirked as distant fireworks drifted back to earth, illuminating the Milky Way. To flush out Leo crouching behind Virgo and Ursa Major, the Pointer Stars of the Big Dipper drenched the Cowardly Lion with yellow strawed light.
Without glare, light pollution, or skyglow, the evening’s celestial bowl was awesome. I was knocking on heaven’s door, awestruck by constellations close enough to touch. The beautiful night illuminated the flawed state motto (Ad astra per sera) “to the stars through difficulty” witch personified the Kansas mindset (pic below). It’s strange how Kansas sparked my imagination.
As the birthday party started to fizzle, I felt the urge to get back home to Kentucky. Off to the left, I heard a soft Siren’s voice. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain… Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs.”
Awestruck, I looked around, and among the ultraviolet shadows I could spy a tall, slender woman below a faded, golden torch. In the distance Roman candles popped. She beckoned with her left hand for me to approach. She was much older than I expected, and had very striking, Roman features. She called herself Libertas. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” she repeated. ” You know that Wizard doesn’t really control Oz.
She opened the palm of her hand “ I have a small gift for you.” With the torch directly above, it resembled a small, dull stone.
“Hold the stone.”
As I did so, an old memory sparkled like a living hologram. First I could see Maisy and her newborn face. Next I noticed Maisy’s actions, her tiny hand moving slowly and eventually cupping Judy’s small pinky. Finally, I could behold the glow on my wife’s face. In a single and yet boundless moment Judy felt the presence of her granddaughter. She quoted Dylan Thomas, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age.” She had not trekked one mile, had never left home, but at that moment she experienced something vast and limitless. Judy was in AWE.
Libertas interrupted my fugue state of mind.
“For biking unsupported and outwitting my sister Mariah, I present to you this small stone. In the future, you will unearth more of them. Remember to see, to hear and to find awe everyday, everywhere and in everything.”
“Don’t leave home without it.” She chuckled to herself
“Mike, my Independence Day wish for you is freedom,” she hesitated. “But finish your trek, and go home. Be the Wizard of AWE.”
And with that, like all good protagonists, she exited Stage Right.
I still have a long way to go before I get back home.
But If that’s not nice I don’t know what is.
The China Palace’s parking lot was packed with union flag waving pickup trucks , so I ate vittles there. Not a confederate flag to be seen. The grub was crackerjack and once again I chatted with Kansas Jayhawkers. Afterwards, it was early to bed, for sunrise bugle reveille . I was bushed from the riding and wacked from the Chinese beer…Boxing Cat Suckerpunch Pale Ale.