Folks in the Midwest are NICE

A few hundred miles ago, we talked to a couple who were also travelling, but by car. They were very interested in our journey, and it turned out we'd be riding about 20 miles from their home near Great Bend, KS. Yesterday, when we were in Great Bend, they delivered a huge basket of homemade cookies to us at the hotel. We ate them at the SAG stop today. They were fantastic, especially after biking 30 miles before the stop.

The ride today was more typical Kansas. The antique farm equipment in the foreground here is the most interesting thing we saw on the road today.
That's an oil pump in the background. Lots of oil wells in this part of Kansas.


Here's a shot from outside our hotel this morning. I think it's a great summary of mid-America - a giant U.S. flag with a Perkins in the background. We ate lunch yesterday and breakfast today at this Perkins, just like real Americans. We had dinner at Applebee's, so maybe even Sarah Palin would consider us real Americans.

We couldn't figure out if the flag was at half mast for Memorial Day, or because Dennis Hopper died yesterday. He was from nearby Dodge City. I think it was Peter Fonda, not Hopper, who wore the American flag leathers in Easy Rider, so maybe this was for Memorial Day.

We're in McPherson, Kansas tonight. Downtown McPherson is really nice, including an opera house and TWO promising coffee shops - Java Johns and Cake Lady, but everything was closed on Sunday. The interstate and our hotel are about 3 miles from downtown. No opera houses or quaint shops out here, but I can see a Walmart, Taco Bell, Arby's, Walgreens, McDonalds, Subway, Applebee's and four other hotels. I wonder how many hotel guests get off the highway, eat the fast food, stay the night, and get directly back on the highway, never seeing any of this very nice town. I'll betcha it's over 90%.