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Thursday, August 7, 2008, Rush City, Kansas
At around 6:30 am, it started raining on us in the tent. We were pitched under a large tree, so it took awhile for the tent to get saturated to the point of leaking. When that happened, we quickly rolled up the bags, took everything out to the covered picnic table area, and waited for the rain to subside. I drove the van to Perry’s Body Shop, where Gloria had made an appointment for 8:00 the day before. When I got there, it was still raining pretty hard. He wasn’t there, so I waited inside and there was a 1949 Chevy being restored with only 60,000 miles on it. It had seat covers and was in very good condition, considering the age. It had been sitting for 30 years in a garage. Finally Perry arrived and he had his assistant fix it, a broken rod, and charged me only $10.00 – very fair deal. I asked about a sheltered place we could unload and reload the van (a necessary procedure in order to fit us and all our stuff in whenever we have hurriedly packed). Then I drove to the place and unpacked most of the stuff and then headed back to the others, who were still huddled around the covered picnic table with the sleeping bags. I shuttled the younger kids to the new location where I had unloaded most of the stuff and returned to the rest of the gang to wait out the rain so we could ride the bikes there. An hour later the rain stopped so we made our move, transporting everything except the wet tent, which we left standing. Then we pedaled over to the library to see how the weather would hold. If it stopped raining, we would ride, hopefully at least to Alexander 20 miles away, preferably farther.
To be continued….
We ended up riding through the rain all the way to Rush City. The semis drag a sea of mist with them in the rain and when they pass by you, you get blasted. So we were pretty wet when we arrived in Alexander, our first stop, to pick up my birthday card from Mama I had forwarded from Pueblo. It was a nice card and she sent me $100. Thanks, Mom. Then we rode to the next town, Rush City, where a crowd in the store told me where we could pitch our tent under cover – the shed across the street where the gas station went out of business. It was a very large garage with a rocky ground, but pretty clean, with an old truck parked inside, and best of all, it would keep us dry if it rained. The coop across the street left its restroom open 24 hours, so we could use it. So we cooked up more pork chops (the cheapest meat we can find) and potatoes and ate whatever we had in the cooler. After eating and our Bible time, three guys rode up who were going to Denver, Dan, Nathan, and Ziod. Nice guys. We talked a while, but then they had to go. They like to ride at night and have lights. Dan is from Philadelphia and Ziod is from Washington D.C., so we will plan to visit them when we get there. We ended up bedding down around 10 pm. 32 miles.