Another day in Great Bend, today I mostly took it easy again, which was really my only option. Great Bend has a free zoo in the park so I wandered over and took a walk through. I saw a pair of grizzly bears playing together in a water pool not more than 6 feet in front of me behind a thick glass pane. Who would have thought the first time I’d see a grizzly bear would be in Kansas. And I didn’t even need bear spray. Their teeth and claws were still terrifying despite being on the other side of the glass.

I also have a working bicycle again! And it works even better than it did before. I have two new wheels, new bar tape, and a new right brake lever. Unfortunately I didn’t know there was an issue with the rear wheel so we didn’t order the part, but the mechanic noticed too much play in the freehub when indexing the shifter and was able to borrow a suitable replacement wheel from a showroom bike. I gave my bike a test ride around the block and it felt so good to have wheels again.

I’m still healing, my lip is still swollen and making it challenging to eat, but the weather will only get hotter the longer I sit here, and I think I exhausted the recreational activities in downtown Great Bend, tomorrow I plan to start riding early in the morning to beat the heat and take it as it comes.

With a working bike I continued along the trail again today, travelling from Great Bend to Newton. The weather in Kansas is on a warming trend, next week is meant to get quite hot indeed. In a bid to beat the heat I started well before sunrise today, rolling out of Great Bend in the dark using my bike lights. It was totally worth it, I spooked a few deer and racoons, possums, skunks, or whatever they were, they went running, but the relative lack of wind and moderate temperatures made for a pleasant ride, and I watched the sun rise from the saddle of my bike.

Great Bend is named, predictably, because it’s where the Arkansas River bends to the south. The trail loosely follows the Arkansas River today, but then heads east, while the river continues further south to pass through Wichita. What I’ve been told about Kansas is true, it is flat, although it rolls, it is hot, and it is windy. The whole state seems to be laid out in a grid system, when you don’t have geography limiting you I guess there’s no reason not to.

The rural farmland punctuated by small towns continued, but it felt less desolate than the western part of the state which had few dwellings and few features, as I continue west there are more houses, more trees, but still lots and lots of fields of crops. There were also idyllic fluffy clouds punctuating the sky.

Tonight I’m staying in Newton, a medium sized town with some cute streets with well maintained houses. Tomorrow should be slightly warmer again than today so I’ll look to try and beat the heat again as much as possible.

I woke up before sunrise again, ready to get most of the riding done before the heat of the sun. The national weather service has an excessive heat warning in place starting Monday through Thursday, with effective temperatures between 43 to 46 Celsius (110 to 115), and for Sunday morning there were also some thunderstorm warnings in place. Before I had my accident I was actually in a great weather window, with below average highs and below average winds. Unfortunately the accident had pushed me into a higher than average window.

I left the hotel at 4 am and headed out into the slightly muggy night air, it was pleasant riding. I hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile before noticing the flashing horizon to both sides of me. The thunderstorms were illuminating the night. While it wasn’t forecast to thunder over me, I wasn’t comfortable heading out into the wide, open, and flat Kansas country with thunder clouds all around. I retreated back to my hotel room and the cool conditioned air.

If I couldn’t start riding early I would have to ride later in the day in the hotter weather, and the area I was heading into was as remote as the area I was coming from, there are few accommodation options. I was also finding that the swelling in my lips was not healing as fast as I would like, and while it doesn’t hurt it is making life uncomfortable.

I decided instead to just ride south to Wichita, the second largest city in Kansas, which was only about 25 miles to the south of Newton. It should have been a 2ish hour ride in normal conditions, but I was riding directly into a 20 mph headwind, it took me 4 hours of sustained effort as the temperatures creeped up to make it into Wichita. I was glad to retreat to an air conditioned room.

The outlook for the next week seemed like something to endure rather than enjoy. I have thoroughly enjoyed every day of the tour, up to the day I spent in the ER. I don’t want to struggle through the eastern half with my mouth hanging open in discomfort, so I made the decision to declare success and make my way back to California. I’m pretty much exactly half way, I’ve cycled in excess of 2,500 miles through 5 states covering the American west, experiencing the Pacific coast all the way to Continental Divide and down to the Great Plains, I’ve eaten several gallons of ice cream and still lost weight. Maybe another year I’ll come back and ride the eastern states, from the Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean, but for the rest of the summer I plan to rest up, let my face heal, and head to the Sierra Nevada, relaxing by the cool mountain lakes.

I plan to rent a car, drive to Denver, and take the California Zephyr, a train that crosses the Continental Divide on the tracks I rode alongside when I crossed Rollins Pass, and then continues on through Utah, Nevada, crossing the Sierra Nevada in California, and pulls in to the east bay just a few miles from San Francisco. I should be sleeping in my own bed by Friday.

I’ve been back in California for a week, I no longer look like my face was dragged across the pavement, but I still can’t eat properly, between the continued swelling in my lips and temporary brace that I need to wear for 6 weeks. Since I’ve been back I’ve slept (a lot), I’ve eaten, I’ve rested, I’ve enjoyed the idyllic bay area weather, and I’ve thought about the days I spent travelling on the trail.

The drive to Denver was fun, I retraced a long section of the plains that I had cycled. As I left Wichita the rain pounded my car and bolts of lightning struck the ground ahead of me. The storm gave way to oppressive heat, but this time I had air conditioning. The thermometer topped out at 42 C (107 F) and stayed over 100 until I started to approach Denver. After hours of flat the outline of the Rocky Mountains gradually appeared on the horizon.

I spent a day in Denver and did a walking tour of the downtown. It’s a large city with very grand public buildings and plaza. On Thursday I made the short walk from my hotel to Union Station to catch the California Zephyr. Due to storms in Nebraska that downed trees across the lines the train was running a few hours late. I boarded around lunchtime and after settling in to my cabin I visited the dining car for lunch as we climbed from Denver up to the Rocky Mountains.

It was fun to look out from Rollinsville to the road I had cycled up just a couple of weeks before. While the train journey over the Rockies was fun it paled in comparison to the experience of riding my fully loaded touring bike over Rollins pass. It took us the rest of the day to traverse Colorado, and the highlight of the trip for me were the Colorado River canyons, in this section the only other way to experience the scenery was rafting, and many of the rafters waved to us as we went by. Night fell as we entered Utah, by this point we were running 5 hours late, and I tucked up to bed.

As the sun rose we crossed from Utah into Nevada, crossing the sand flats into the Nevadan desert. Finally around lunchtime we picked up the Truckee River and crossed into California, climbing up and over the Sierra crest and descending into the Sacramento valley. As we crossed the Sacramento river delta the sun was low in the horizon and set with a stunning yello, orange, and purple sky over the bay as we rounded it and into Emeryville. As pretty as it was I was eager to get off the train and get home. It was a fun way to travel and I’m glad I did it, but it wasn’t quick.

Reflecting on my time on the trail, as I said before, and as probably came through from my updates, I had an amazing time that thoroughly exceeded all my expectations. For me the highlight was the expansive and varied landscapes that I travelled through. A bicycle forces you to be immersed into the environment through which you’re travelling, to see it, to smell it, to hear it, to feel the coolness of the mornings, the heat of the sun, the wind pushing you in all directions. It feels cliche to say but the national parks contained the most spectacular scenery, the hydrothermals in Yellowstone, and the soaring peaks in Grand Teton and Rocky Mountain, but the vast desert landscapes of the west were what really sticks in my mind.

I look forward to my next bicycle tour. I already have notes on gear changes I would make.