On The Prairie - May 21

Monday, May 21

The strong prairie winds can be useful for other things than just have me & the MZ lean up against it.

A repeat of yesterday's trip makes this an easy ride, even if strong sidewinds force me to stay in 4th gear and 45 mph for the first third of today's 200 mile stretch. No matter, the engine seems to take it, albeit noisily, because last night's copper-paste session can't make the connection between pipe and silencer tight. After breakfast at noon the sidewinds change, and I can continue at a better and lower rpm 50 mph pace.

At Rick's Cafe senor Gilberto Dorantes sees my MZ, and comes in to talk to me about it. He even offers to buy it once the trip is over, if the price is right. He's seriously into old bikes, and currently rides a pristine Norton Commando and an equally old BMW.

At the same cafe an old geezer explains to me, that the flags are on half mast because of the Texas school shooting three days ago. They don't do this at every mass shooting, as the flag would all to seldom stay all the way up: So far in 2018 there's been between 30 and 101 of them, depending on definition.

Old style gas station, with attendant pumping gas. 

The Kansas landscape has the same monotony as it had yesterday, only interrupted by animals like a snake crawling across the road. I turn around to take a picture (all the while thinking of this youtube video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEUnYhJ5mrE), but it's gone. Later I see a small turtle crossing the 4-lane highway. And then there's the bloody cows, several of them eerily holding eye contact with me all the while I ride past. Yeah, I know that trailer towing MZs are thin on the ground over here, but still....

Yet another feeder complex, with the same unpleasant smell.

Farm country grain silo, like everything in this country just on a larger scale.

The weird sculpture garden of sorts on Rt. 400, that Travis & Eric talked about

a few days ago.

This being The Midwest, Budweiser taps into the local sentiment about the military.

In Augusta, where I want to see the Twisted OZ motorcycle museum, I realize that I'm at a halfway point, sort of. 1,895 miles under the tyres, plus whatever got racked up on the LA Freeway System, my favourite urban road complex. According to maps.google I have another 2,300 miles to go, but  Augusta is located just about midway between LA and NYC, my final destination. 2,300 miles means 11 days of actual riding, and there's 36 days until my plane leaves.

Aside from the frustrating mechanical grief the MZ has given me (and continues to give), things have gone very well indeed. Kaj & Debbie in LA, as well as Travis & Eric in Guffey, Colorado, were amazing hosts, helping me get my bearings while arriving here, or trying to get the motorcycle to work properly, respectively.

Now finally having seen The Southwest, which I missed first time around in 1982, I can relax as far as sights are concerned. Riding across the prairie is logically not as impressive as were the canyons, the deserts and the mountains, and on my to do/see list there remains really just people. Should the MZ break down now, it'd merely be a question of shipping it to friends in Vermont, and find some other practical way of travelling on. Like by Greyhound bus or by plane or by rental car.