Clear cloudless blue skys greeted us as we left the motel this morning. A quartering tailwind blew us to Ness city. While riding the white line and watching the horizon I made an interesting leap of awareness. I had been picturing Kansas as being flat, and I'd been visualizing myself as being in the center of a 7 mile radius disc. That concept did not talley with what I was observing. There has always been the feeling that I was going up a slight grade even though my exertion level told me it was flat. The perception of going up a grade comes from observing
Cars and trucks on the highway. When they recede into the distance they don't continue to get smaller until they disappear. As they near the horizon they appear to sink just as if they were going over the crest of a hill. I realized that I'm observing vehicles going up, over,and down the curvature of the earth. Kansas is not flat; Reality is not always what you think it is.
For the first time ever I broke 3 hours for 50 miles. Actually I rode 54 miles in 3 hours. Since we had made such good
Distance before 1 we decided to stop by the community pool for a swim. We had heard that all towns in Kansas over about 1200 people have pools and that cyclists are free. The water felt great, however by the time we left the wind had gotten much stronger and had shifted to a true crosswind. We managed to fight the wind for 20 miles before deciding to camp at a rest area.
Tomorrows weather forcast is for winds of 20 to 25 with gusts up to 50 from the south. Guess which way the road turns tomorrow? It is what is is.
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3 comments:
The members of the flat earth society are disapointed that you beleive what you are seeing is teh curvature of the earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society , it is really just a trick in lighting cause by bending and local quanta and quark phenomena.. Glad you had a nice swim, and got to see the sun. In Seattle we, are becoming increasingly convinced there is no sun, we have been abandoned by Appllo, who must be taking a break and dragging the SUN for us, hopefully he wil be back for summer.
54 miles in 3 hours,, that is totally awsome, I look forward to you riding in Seattle, so we can do 50 in a day.. breakfast included..
Hi Pete and Hugh, Why don't you tape a six inch level to the frame of your bikes to see if you are goin flat, or would you concider this too much weight or too easy and take the fun out of watching vehicles dissapear on the horizon?Hugh's brother Peter
Pete and Hugh,
That picture of you hosing each other down ... could you take 11 more similar photos and we can sell is as a 2009 Calendar and raise money for Pete's GLAD holiday bash! Love, Tatyana
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