August 2nd - Day 19 - Fair Grove, MO to Pittsburg, KS - 112miles
Today was an amazing day, it started with about 50 miles of hills as I ended my time in Missouri and finished with 60 miles of relatively flat to gently rolling hills in Kansas.
I got to use my pepper spray for the first time today. A farm dog saw me coming as I started up a hill and ran parallel to me, slowly angling in toward me. The hill became increasingly steep, so I had no chance of accelerating away from him. I yelled at the dog and signaled for the car behind me to pass me to cut off/scare/(hit) the dog but they didn't move. As the dog turned toward my leg I sprayed it, the first burst hitting his head, the second right in the eyes and nose. I expected to get a flurry of yelping and wimpering, no such luck. He kept on running and barking/snarling. Fortunately the snarling was interrupted by sneezing long enough to delay his attack and allow a truck to appear over the hill, scaring him back into his yard. Stupid Mace, not effective against dogs, give me back my pedal wrench.
Later in the day I had an even more memorable run in with domesticated animals run amok. I was coming over a small hill when I saw between 8 and 10 horses running in the road. My first thought was, "wow, they're beautiful, I need to get my camera out". The second thought was the realization that they were on the road, and not only that but they were running at full gallop directly at me. I had no idea what to do in such a situation as there was no cover that I could find so I came to a quick stop and froze. Part of me was deciding whether or not to run and part of me still wanted to get my camera out of the handlebar bag. As they neared I noticed that the horses were being chased by a man on a dirt bike. While I was looking around for cover I saw a car coming up the road behind me and I hoped that he would come fast enough for me to use the car as cover. As with the dog earlier in the day, the driver failed to comprehend my vulnerability to charging animals and stopped his car about 20 yards behind me. I was left to face off against a herd of panicked horses by myself.
Luckily, when the horses were about 50 yards away they spooked because of me and the car blocking their way and began to slow, stopping and splitting off to either side of the road about 20 yards from me. The dirt biker used this pause and break in the group to charge through the group and turn around facing the horses from my direction. The horses then turned and ran back the way they had come with the dirt biker driving them on and yelling. I couldn’t see where over the next hill the horses had gone, so I continued slowly and found the dirt biker walking along the street, having given the dirt bike back to the neighbor. I talked to him briefly, apologizing for messing up whatever it was he was trying to do. He told me that he was actually trying to turn the horses (so me freezing in the face of a stampede was a good thing). He had accidentally left the gate to the horse pasture open and started to mow the lawn nearby, scaring the horses who then fled down the road. He ran across the road and borrowed the dirt bike from the neighbor to chase down the horses and get them back in the pasture.
Nearly stampeded by horses: I LOVE THIS RIDE!!
Oh yeah, I never did get my camera out, so I have no pictures of the horses. Fail.
Quality Water Means Quality Life
1.2 billion people do not have access to clean water. Help others avoid the choice between thirst or disease.
As we passed through the Ozark Mountains, among Missouri scenic rivers, we came to a gorgeous little spot called "Two Rivers." At this convergence of the Jacks Fork and Current rivers, the silt heavy rapids of the Current meet the clear calm of the Jacks Fork river and one can actually see the divide between the two. I couldn't help but think of the divide between our access to clean water and the lack thereof in the villages of rural Ghana.
Troy and I consume on average, about 12 to 20 (20 oz) bottles of water daily. That's 12 to 20 times per day that, unlike the people in rural Ghana, Troy and I avoid illness without even realizing it. Regardless of how many miles we ride, we have no doubt that stopping anywhere along the road for water will be easy and risk-free.
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