Day 29: Fourth of July

July 4, 2022 in Dodge City, Kansas

This morning began with amazing monkey bread and ended with time with friends–– what more could you ask for?!

It was my first morning on cooler crew as my chore, but we worked together and got it done, and I was able to get on the road with some pals relatively quickly.

In the first few miles, we found some fantastic hay bales to climb, and I was finally able to get the traditional Bike and Build hay pictures!

It did get much more difficult from there, though... the wind picked up about 25 miles-per-hour, and my ride group was struggling hard.

It was like climbing the world's tallest hill for hours on end, while being cooked like a rotisserie chicken. My group split off in two, as Kelsey and I wanted to pick up the pace and be done with the torture.

It was a super rough last 15 miles to lunch, maybe my hardest yet. It took almost an hour to bike 6 miles with the wind being so brutal. I will say that some entertaining jokes about "Mr. Wind" did come from it.

Around mile 40, the wind got to the point where I didn't really feel comfortable going over bridges. Some thirty-plus mile-per-hour gusts were pushing me into the guardrails on the last bridge, so I decided that was just about enough for me.

After getting off the road for my safety (but mostly for my peace of mind), my friends Nathan and Corbett, who happened to be in the safety truck, and I found a really cool local museum about the history of the county we were in.

There was a matchbox collection, pictures from the town's drafts, paintings of a family's dogs, giant books of town reports to look through, historical clothing, and so many other fascinating artifacts.

Nathan and I found a coroner's report for a murder in 1908, and we spent a good amount of time deciphering what it said–– it was pretty incredible, and easily my favorite find there.

Even cooler, we found the sign for the exact middle of the United States!

Everyone rolled into the host site around 4, and once we'd all established a plan for the evening and taken showers, the host brought dinner.

We had Jimmy Johns, and even though I usually don't like ham much I had two ham sandwiches because they were the only ones with cheese. They were pretty good, as far as ham goes! We also had those nasty sugar cookies that somehow taste like cardboard and heaven at the same time.

I took a nap after that and had my friend wake me up when everyone was ready to go out! We went out for drinks at an Applebees, because all the local bars were closed for the Fourth.

I had a strawberry lemonade because I'm twenty. It was really good though (especially with my pretzels and beer cheese) and it was really fun to be part of the team for that. I had a really good conversation with my close friends too, which was definitely the best part.

We all walked back to the host before ten to catch the fireworks, and were able to see a few set off in yards on the way! Fireworks are weirdly legal here, so it was definitely a really different experience from the 4th of July in Massachusetts.

I decided I was too tired to go scope a good fireworks spot, so I watched a few from the window and decided to go to bed. Besides, I will be seeing some on the Cape with my family in early September.

Tomorrow is a build day, and I'm glad for a lighter day after a later night.