After a nice night of sleep I woke up this morning with a challenging weather radar. My goal was to get to Joplin, MO about 360 miles away, while avoiding getting soaked. This weather pattern has been circling over southeast Kansas for a few days, counter clockwise to the south, as if it was waiting for me. It seemed I would be playing a game of chess with the weather today.
Several hours in I’m still dry so I get to enjoy my McDonalds in Pratt, KS outside on the sidewalk. No inside dining this morning.
☹️
Most of my day has looked like this, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter skies. I’ve been dodging the storm cells so far by changing my route, jogging north or south on county, state and US highways.
At 1:30 I ran out of places to turn to avoid the rain so I took a little 45 minute break to let the sprinkles dry up while I mapped out my strategy. I pulled up under a picnic awning at a small town park to keep me and my gear dry for the break.
At 3pm, after about 50 miles of riding the weather puts me in check in Caney, KS near the Oklahoma border. A shroud of rain blocks me from going any further east for at least 2 hours and it appears Joplin won’t be clear until late this evening.
It’s not checkmate yet. While there is absolutely no place to sleep in Caney, KS to seek shelter for the night I think I can get to Coffeyville, KS about 20 miles east later this evening. Now I have time to blog, read and catch up with a few phone calls under an abandoned gas station awning while I wait out the weather.
Most of my day has looked like this, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter skies. I’ve been dodging the storm cells so far by changing my route, jogging north or south on county, state and US highways.
At 1:30 I ran out of places to turn to avoid the rain so I took a little 45 minute break to let the sprinkles dry up while I mapped out my strategy. I pulled up under a picnic awning at a small town park to keep me and my gear dry for the break.
At 3pm, after about 50 miles of riding the weather puts me in check in Caney, KS near the Oklahoma border. A shroud of rain blocks me from going any further east for at least 2 hours and it appears Joplin won’t be clear until late this evening.
It’s not checkmate yet. While there is absolutely no place to sleep in Caney, KS to seek shelter for the night I think I can get to Coffeyville, KS about 20 miles east later this evening. Now I have time to blog, read and catch up with a few phone calls under an abandoned gas station awning while I wait out the weather.
At the Caseys in Caney to grab some treats clearly social distancing is not happening here. As I’ve headed east from Boulder County where we have mask vigilantes to eastern Kansas now, I’ve seen less and less social distancing, even though you can tell many people are still a little weird about being near others. I thought I would be safer in smaller towns on the back roads but this morning as I headed out of Dodge City I passed a huge meat packing plant. Tonight I checked on-line and found that Ford County has two meat packing plants, has been a hot spot for Covid-19 leading the state with 1,299 Covid-19 cases. Maybe I should have challenged my assumptions about rural America?
Around 5:15pm the skies have cleared enough to make it to Coffeyville where I find this pleasant little inn for $57/nt. with a 24 hr restaurant just for guests. They cater to railroad workers who come and go 24 hours a day. Besides having a grotto like pool and spa I had the best $13 dinner I’ve ever had, however I stayed out of the pool and spa and the restaurant was empty except for me. 😷
I’ll consider today a stalemate.
thanks for the update Scott. looks like you are having a good adventure.
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