Hopkins 4K for Cancer

June 27, 2003

Keep on MOOOOVIN'
Another crazy day of biking. Eric and I headed out on our own this morning. We met up with Sumeet, Drew, and Babak, but ended up by ourselves again by the first water break. We got some snacks at the Casey’s General Store, and went back at it. The wind was pretty brutal all day. We had lunch at the Cottonwood ranch, a historical house that was over 100 years old. The ranger/caretaker was very knowledgeable and told us stuff about the house and the surrounding area. After lunch, I joined up with Babak and Jeeves. We pushed really hard. I was starting to fall behind when we pulled into Hoxie, where we enjoyed mammoth slushies that took us 45 minutes to finish. We finally headed out at around 4:30 with another 32 miles to go. The wind had died down and we had finally reached the flat parts of western Kansas we had been waiting for (it was really flat). Unfortunately, we noticed some ominous storm clouds dead ahead, heavy, black, and pendulous. We stopped for a quick break at the side of the road and talked to some guys who were a bit confused to see us. You see, they had just passed a group of three bikers that looked just like and couldn’t figure out how we had passed them since they were going 60 mph. We chatted for a bit and then said goodbye and started pedaling again. By that point, those storm clouds were right overhead and it started to rain and blow very hart. We pulled over and ducked into the nearest barn and waited out the storm. As we were leaving with our bikes, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a cow charging in our direction. We were saved in the nick of time by the electric fence separating man from bovine. That was a close one. Unscathed, we hopped back on our bikes and continued to ride out the remaining 17 miles to Colby.



Kansas has been a very rough stretch, and we’ll all be glad to get to Nebraska tomorrow, and then onto Colorado, where mountains and adventure (but hopefully less corn and wheat fields) await.



Travis Snow