To Cassoday

We begrudgingly unzipped our respective sleeping bags right around six in the morning and had our first miles at 7:15. Our earliest departure yet. It was actually cool in the morning, felt nice. Adam had a flat but it got fixed quickly enough and then it was time to keep pedaling toward the ocean. They still have those right?

We got to a place called Toronto around 11 that morning and had forty miles done. I leaned on a trash can in the park – it fell over and broke. I maintain it was pretty precarious to begin with. We'll have to let the good citizens of Toronto decide because we skedaddled after our short meal break. Then it was on to Eureka, Kansas for our next break. Several thousand people live there and it seems like another small town in decline. It has a main street with brick buildings and what you can imagine must have been a lot of charm but half the storefronts are boarded up. You can tell some of them have been closed a long time. I always imagine what these places must have been like in their heyday, when there was no pull from Wal-Marts or larger cities. We ate at a gazebo outside the court building and started to get sluggish. Sloth-like. There was some laying down. Some members of the crew may have fallen totally asleep. We were pushing just shy of a hundred today so nobody seemed too keen on getting back on the bicycle. A local came by and started talking: “Hey, there's no soliciting here, or is it... what's the word?” Us: “No loitering?” Guy: “Right, that's it. Where are you guys from?” A lot of people ask us where we're from, where we're going. It's cool that people are interested. There has been some discussion of inventing new fabrications every time we get asked.

We got through some mild hills and another meal break at Rosalia. We spoke to a gentleman at the store and restaurant, but he was a little confused about which way we were going. He thought we were going to Eureka and told us about the swimming pool and the downhill miles. Instead we were on our way to Cassoday, a ghost town. The wind was stiff getting there and there was no downhill but we made it all the same. We met some touring cyclists from London who were cool. We shared our roadkill experiences. (Read all of the following to yourself in a British accent.) “I haven't seen any round armadillos. We've seen a lot of flat ones.” “Possum sounds like a nice animal right? Just say possum. Here possum, possum. But then you see their teeth. It's like they're prehistoric.” The bathrooms in Cassoday were the “let it drop” style according to some other tourists from earlier in the day. Roughest ones yet. I think some of us opted to poop in the woods. Jeremy and Jordan got ice cream from the only store in town and we went to sleep on the “bandstand.” (Gazebo for the Americans reading.)

Jeremiah Bullfrog.

Profile.

I can't think of anything clever to say about this stream.

Lunch break in Eureka.

"Bandstand." Click for the full version. You won't be disappointed.

Rapids.

Pushing toward Cassoday.