I'm currently just outside of Kansas City staying at another motel. I had intended on camping but menacing clouds and oppressive heat caused me to wuss out in a big way ...

Today was hot. Crazy hot. I'm completely wiped out and am likely to call it a night shortly ... we'll see how much energy I have left to write anything.

I woke up this morning around 9 to a cacophony of bird songs. The windows were open allowing a cool breeze to permeate the room. Sounds of people arriving at the Mercantile Inn gave it a kind of hub feeling. You got the sense that people arrive, stay a while and leave.

My room had been comfortable. Basic lap of luxury. Much more so than I had imagined it would be. The inn uses only collected rain water, solar power, composting toilets and straw bail construction. Despite all of this, it was all comfortable and there wasn't a sense that anything was missing, well, with the possible exception of air conditioning.

Breakfast was berries with home made yogurt followed by an egg veggie scramble. Oh, and there was coffee. I was grateful. Ted and Aurelia joined me for breakfast. It was a lazy hot morning and mostly we just sat.

Ted had some things to do so I headed back up to my room to answer some emails and check on the world. Lunch was served at noon, which was a very nice yogurt/tuna salad. Sarah, Ted and Aurelia joined me for that one.

By this time the heat had set it. I went up to my room, put on my leathers and packed up my gear. I was pretty well cooked by the time I got on the bike. Sarah, Ted and Aurelia saw me off.

I'm going to have to finish this tomorrow ... I am simply to wiped out tired right now. The heat today really took it out of me ... more tomorrow.

(10 or so hours later). Man, I was well roasted yesterday. The heat had completely taken it out of me. I was passing out at the keyboard. I'm now well rested, packed up and sitting at a starbucks waiting for a rainstorm to pass so I can go visit Angela and Mike, who I met at Deal's Gap.

So, where was I? Yesterday ...

I have to admit I was sad to leave Ted and Sarah and Dancing Rabbit. In many ways, the place is what you would kind of expect once the initial shock wears off. It's one of those environments that pulls you out of your comfort zone. As a younger man, I hated that feeling but now as an older man I find I enjoy it. I think, however, it would have been much different if Ted and Sarah hadn't done so much to make me feel welcome and make it easy for me. The thing that strikes me about the village is how many people interactions one has in a typical day. Its reminiscient of a middle ages village. People everywhere coming and going. Everyone on foot. People helping each other out. Obviously, there's politics, and work and stresses like anywhere else, but there's something to this communal living that I've never lived myself but I've gotten a taste of from afar.

It dawned on me that was I saw here was not unlike a societally acceptable form of communal living, namely family life. A family unit is merely a kind of commune. A group of people sharing resources and cooperating. One might say that it's different, but I speculate it isn't really. Husband and wife aren't blood relatives. They get together to raise some kids, to not be alone. We get so used to the structures we grew up with that often times we dismiss anything that's too far removed from what we consider "normal". But as is the case in so many things in life, if you give yourself the time to aclimate to a new environment, what was initially very strange and foreign can, after a while, seem quite normal.

I found people there to be curious, interesting and very willing to explore other ideas. Not a single person was preachy. They were very cautious not to be judgemental of the guy wearing the leather suit riding the technological hydrocarbon consuming monstrosity. I appreciated that.

But it's definitely an environment that will challenge your ability to be open minded and to adapt. There's alot that you see where your initial reaction is "I don't understand how they like to live like this" or "wow, that just ain't right". Then you give yourself some time, and you get used to it, and it seems less alien.

It was nice havinig breakfast, lunch and dinner surrounded by other people having interesting conversations. It was nice to feel included. I spend so much of my life so alone that just sitting down to eat with someone else can be such a special treat. There was a family that used to invite me over regularly to join them for dinner when times were bad. I always used to value that so much ...

So I was sad to leave. The next time I go there I think I'll try to stay longer and help out a bit. There's alot of unconventional construction being done there that could be very interesting to try my hand at.

But the road was calling me and it was time to leave.

I took a different out since I was heading southwest and encountered more steep waves of asphalt. These photos just don't do justice to how hilly this area is.

I rode for maybe 30 miles when I came up a "bridge closed ahead" sign. The road was closed. I thought to myself "no problem, I have the Garmin Nuvi 1440 GPS, I did like Duncan said and updated the maps before I left and all I need to do is hit the detour button." Yea, right.

I wasn't stressed. I was only about 200 miles from Kansas City and didn't have to be in town until the followinng afternoon, so I was looking forward to tooling around a bit on side roads. The GPS guided me to a dirt road. "Practice!", I thought looking forward to a little offroading.

These were numbered roads. Gravel, but entirely passable. No problem. The GPS continued to guide me around the closed bridge only to point me to a road that didn't exist. The engine started heating up and the radiator exhaust basically cooked me as I was riding along these roads at less than 30mph. I tried half a dozen routes trying to find a way to the far side of the closed bridge. An hour and many miles of false starts and turn arounds passed. At one point, having travelled a few miles down a very promising road that degraded into a grass covered trail I encountered a rickety bridge.

This thing was nuts. It was a couple of steel I-beams with spaced planks laid on top of it. The creek was some 30 feet below.

I crossed the sketchy bridge and found a mud trail made by a tractor on the far end. I followed it as far as I could only to find another dead end. I turned around in the muck and crossed the bridge again. While entirely doable, this maneuver was probably questionable.

At times, while I was trying every deadend trail I could find, the GPS consistently lying to me in it's female voice, I came across wide beautiful fields.

It started getting really hot. The Aerostich Transit Suit was not as hot as I expected it to be, but the venting could definitely be improved. Beginning to get tired to snapped less photos. Riding on gravel, dirt and mud on a bike as large and street oriented and loaded as my K100RS takes all of your concentration. There was no philosophizing on this stretch. I was a man on task.

The landscape was as hilly as the paved roads I had ridden. At times I found myself wondering as I was heading downhill towards deep ruts to cross a creek over some wooden planks if maybe this was ill advised. At one point in the distance I saw a critter walking.

I used the extreme zoom on the camera. I figure this is probably a racoon?

At another point some kind of huge raptor flew right in front of the bike carrying off a huge snake. There was no way to pull out the camera fast enough to snap a photo.

Attempt #10 took me down a very steep grade past some ponds. The GPS said to go straight which unfortunately turned out to be across a river in a 30 foot gorge.

At this point hours had passed and I was starting to get low on gas. I began to wonder if I shouldn't just bail on trying to get around the bridge and head north for a while. I decided to try one more time. In the distance I saw a stretch of pavement and the gravel was smooth so I started rolling down a hill too quickly and failed to notice the god-awful deep hole in the middle of the road which I hit square on with a large bump. The left saddlebag came off it's mount and crashed onto the gravel and slid for yards and yards. "Fuck".

(note bag in distance)

Fuck. In all the years I've ridden this bike this has never happened. But it's good that it happened here. It provides a good perspective about what can happen on the Dalton Highway if I let my concentration lapse. I was pretty thoroughly roasted and I think I was probably suffering a bit of dehydration; my leathers were completely soaked in sweat. Structurally the bag was undamaged, so I was able to ride on. The pavement I saw was there just to tease me. Back onto dirt roads I went.

What added a surreal aspect to being caught in these fields out in the middle of nowhere was that I was in constant contact. I would ride a bit, stop, check for txts, answer them, ride on ...

Eventually I came across another bridge across the same large deep creek.

The guard rail, if you can call it that, is about 6" high. This had to be the creek I had been trying to get across all this time. Encouraged I continued on.

Some more miles of dusty albeit well maintained dirt roads later I found myself on pavement and soon after that on superslab. I ended up dragging foot as I cornered and accelerated onto the slab. The thermometer read over 90degF. On fumes, I stopped at a gas station, got gas and drank a liter of water.

From there one the rest of the day was uneventful. I ran through a tank of gas on the kind of large superslab the midwest is known for.

It was still over 90 as the sun set. I'm a little concerned about the bike. I had clicked off 150 miles before I knew it and already hit reserve. When I got gas I calculated that I had only gotten 40mpg. That's 10mpg less than it has been on this trip. I wonder if I got a bad tank of gas or whether the bike is developing a problem. There wasn't that much dust so I doubt the airfilter is clogged. I'll have to keep an eye on it. There's been alot of little worrying things, from the key getting stuck, to the starter delaying before engaging, to the hazards not working at first, etc. These are all issues I've never had with the bike.

The clouds became more intense I decided to wuss out and bail on camping again. Off to a super 8 motel conveniently located next to a steakhouse I went. By the time I had all my gear moved into the room I was completely spent. I downed alot of water than hobbled off to the steakhouse for dinner. I talked to a guy at the bar for a bit who was an insurance salesman. We talked about my trip, the markets, places to go. The bartender, Sarah, is married to a military guy and had lived in North Carolina for a while.

I went back to the hotel and tried to write for a while, but was so tired, I crashed. I slept for nearly 10 hours solidly. When I finally did wake up the rain was coming down in sheets. Note to self, thank my former self for not camping. I packed up the gear and moved over to a starbucks where I currently sit typing away waiting for the rain to lessen. I'll probably hit the road in the next 30 minutes or so. The Transit Suit may not be ideal for the heat, but I do so appreciate the fact that it actually is waterproof.