That Fuzzy Thing

Have you ever had that little itch somewhere on your face or head where you can't reach it to scratch it because you have your helmet on? Sure you have! Well it happened to me again recently. It was on my right cheek and I thought it would just go away. It didn't and when I stopped at the next stop light I popped up the visor, took a glove off, reached in and gave my cheek a quick scratch. Ahhh, Relief! But a little ways down the street the itch came back, but this time closer to the right side of my nose. I could barely see that it was a white object with what felt like a long piece of hair attached to it. I could only partially see it, but it felt like it was tickling the entire right side of my face. It was really starting to drive me crazy. For a moment I thought I might have to stop the scooter and remove my helmet to get it out. At the next stop light though, I repeated my earlier treatment and was able to get it out of my helmet. I am still not sure exactly what it was, but it was like a piece of stuffing that you might find in a pillow, or one of those fuzzball things that come off cottonwood trees. How it got in my helmet, I'm not sure. Doesn't matter now either. But for a few minutes there.........

I'm a Lucky Father

The immediate family members have always done something very nice for me for Fathers Day. This year my son had to leave on Sunday for a trip to a conference in Dallas so we got together on Saturday night for a barbecue dinner at my son's house. We had a great dinner of chicken breasts, salad, fruit and Laura (son's significant friend) made a Key Lime pie for dessert. My daughter and her fiance were going to meet up with his father on Fathers Day, so Sunday was going to be a day with just Jayna and I. I was looking forward to a relaxing day alone with my wife after a very busy week. I was also hoping to go for a short ride sometime on Sunday, but the house needed cleaning and there was some yard work to do. Then my wife said that she would clean the house Sunday morning, while I was gone, if I wanted to go for a ride. I gave a measly sort of protest about it not being fair for her to stay home and clean the house while I went out to have fun. She firmly insisted that I go. I couldn't make her change her mind. (Then again, maybe I didn't try real hard, or maybe she is not impressed with how I clean.) I left the house about 8:30am. It was one of those days where I had no real plan as to where to ride. And I love a ride like that. So many rides are for a particular purpose. I thought I would head south first on Greenwich road, a section line road just east of town. I ran into some road construction and turned east for a few miles. I decided to turn south again on Andover Road. My makeshift plan was to see how far I could take this road before it turned into dirt. I discovered that Andover Road, the main street in Andover Kansas, eventually became renamed as Butler Road as I got further away from the city of Andover. Butler is the county and I wondered as I rode how the road ended up with two names depending on where you were. Then again, who cares. As I rode along I thought about what a great family I have and how lucky I am. My wife is the best, of course. My kids (28 and 23) are both out of college and gainfully employed as teachers. They each have really neat significant others in their lives and I really couldn't be prouder of them. It was a hot and humid day as I continued south. The first town I came to was Rose Hill. Not sure where the town got its name. Saw some roses but someone would have to show me where the hill is. They have a new high school there and it is a nice little community. I know people that live here and commute to Wichita every day. As I ride south from Rose Hill it looks like the road might dead end at K-15, a state highway, but the road just jogged over a bit and I continued on to the town of Udall. I stopped here to get a couple of pictures.

ATSF stands for Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe

Udall has some notoriety for having been almost completely destroyed by a huge tornado in 1955. Jayna's father was a newspaper reporter for the Wichita newspaper at the time and was one of the first people into Udall after the tornado hit. Having some scary experience with tornados myself, I took a moment to look at a small memorial for the victims of the tornado in the park adjacent to the caboose.

A rather somber memorial. The names continued on down to the bottom of the rock.

I decide to go west from here after seeing that Butler (Andover) Road had apparently ended. There was a sign saying that Belle Plaine was 9 miles away. I always thought that "Belle Plaine" was a nice name for a town.

About nine minutes later I rode in. I have been there before, but don't recall entering town from the east side. It's amazing how your memory of a town is dependent on what you see by the direction you come in. It was pretty in the morning sun.

Belle Plaine has a beautiful little nature conservancy known as the Bartlett Arboretum. Beautiful flowers and trees abound. You can take a walk over footbridges and paths inside the park while being surrounded by beautiful plantlife. One of those little known and out of the way gems of the world.

I went on westward eventually reaching an intesection with old US 81 that goes north back to Wichita and eventually becomes Broadway Ave in the central and downtown areas of Wichita.

Some sunflowers and other pretties on the side of the road

At the intersection I stopped for a bit to get a drink of water. Took a few pics of some wildfllowers and made a new plan on getting back to Wichita.

A pretty shot of some sun and shade

I wasn't going that way this morning, but I bet the produce is good. This is serious farming country

On the southeast part of Wichita was an old (now closed) amusement park known as "Joyland". I though it might be interesting to ride by and see what kind of shape it was in. It was primarily for grade school age children. But there was a rather unique old wooden roller coaster there as well.

I had an acquaintance that said he worked there as a teenager. He said his first duty each day was to "walk" the roller coaster with a couple of wrenches and tighten any bolts that might be loose. He said there were always loose bolts.

It sure appears to be a lonely looking park now. If you listen, you can try to imagine the laughter and screams of children on the various rides when the park was in its hey-day. That was a long time ago.

I dared not to trespass. Looks a little overgrown

I am sure it would be very costly to fix up that old roller coaster now. It was never breath-taking with speed or thrills, but was always surprisingly fun with its little creaks and rattles. Nowadays the big amusement parks in Kansas City or Oklahoma City, even Dallas seem to get Wichita's business for amusement parks with their big expensive thrill rides. I only rode on that roller coaster maybe 3 or 4 times in my life, all as an adult, but somehow I miss it. Another bygone era.

The tallest portion of the old roller coaster. I bet there are a lot of loose bolts now.

I rode on home after that stop and was glad to get out of the heat. Jayna and I watched some World Cup soccer that afternoon and also a rather bad movie starring Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. We took the dogs for a walk later that evening after it cooled off a bit.

What a great day it was.

I am a lucky dude!

Watch Out, Out There

Recently, I had a couple of scary events while riding or driving that have caused me to ponder a bit about rider safety "out there" on the road. First: I was riding home on the scooter. It's about 10:00 pm. It's a 4 lane street and going the opposite direction from me was a motorcycle and a car almost side by side with each other. The motorcycle was in the curb lane. No big deal, really, but suddenly I hear the motorcycle engine roar and the rider does a wheelie for about 20 yards or so. Almost right in front of me. Startled the crap out of me. Didn't expect that at all on a somewhat lazy ride home at night with seemingly little traffic. We passed by each other and nothing bad happened except for a little jolt of surprise on my part. But as I rode on I wondered a bit about what might have happened if the other rider had screwed up the wheelie and maybe caused the car to swerve, possibly into my lane. How would I have reacted? I was being alert, but this was so totally unexpected. Made me think. . Hmmmmm. Second: The next afternoon I am driving the famous Canadian Subaru. We were on a two lane highway and we were executing a somewhat lazy left curve at about 55 mph. There was a car on my right, stopped at a driveway, waiting to make an entrance to the highway. I saw it early on and sort of kept an eye on it. There had been some traffic coming from the opposite direction. Unbelievably, the car pulled out on to the highway right in front of me making a left turn onto the highway. Thank God for a good car with anti lock brakes. I actually had to swerve to the right and drive off the road a bit, onto some grass and across the driveway. I ended up driving behind the car that had pulled in front of me. I don't think I could have stopped completely in time, but was able to successfully make the maneuver around the car and avoid an accident. I saw the face of an elderly looking lady very briefly as we passed by each other. There was some fear in her eyes as she was realizing that I could have easily plowed right into the driver's side door. But no accident. Just a fairly close call. As we drove on, I thought about my reaction. I thought I had done well in avoiding a potentially serious accident. I then considered what might have happened had I been on the scooter instead of in the car. The scooter does not have anti lock brakes. I was real glad I had them that afternoon. And the scooter brakes are decent, but not as good as the brakes on the car. I know that and try and take that into account as I am riding. Then I also thought about the maneuver I made and how different it would have been with the scooter. The grass could have been much more of a potential problem for the scooter. I wondered if my reaction riding the scooter would have been as good as my reaction was in the car? I'd like to think I would have been planning ahead a bit further on the scooter and been going a bit slower in the situation. You know, SIPDE. Also. I'd like to think that I would have handled the braking differently knowing to avoid allowing the brakes to lock (particularly the front) and potentially causing a skid. But again, this entire scenario was so surprising and unexpected. Hmmmmm. Third: That night on the news there was a report of a traffic accident near town where 2 people died and a motorcyclist was severely injured. The accident apparently involved a car crossing over the median on a separated roadway and striking another vehicle on the other side. A mother and her 10 year old son were pronounced dead at the scene. It sounds like the motorcyclist avoided the collision, but apparently laid the bike down in his effort to avoid the incident. A car suddenly crossing a median on a separated roadway is not something that I would normally even remotely anticipate. Let's hope the motorcyclist gets better soon. Let's also hope all our riding stays serene, ordinary, with little traffic and courteous drivers. But can you ever predict everything? Particularly when another driver does something really unusual and totally unexpected? Hmmmmm