A Bike Ride Called America: Emerald City

To my slight dismay, the strong northeast headwind prevailed when I set off from Guymon, OK. One of the websites I regularly check is Wind Map, which neatly shows wind patterns in the USA in real time. Normally winds come from the south through Texas which mean a somewhat favourable side wind for someone travelling diagonally across the Great Plains. The only good thing was that the wind was cool and the skies were overcast, which kept the temperature at a sweet spot.

One of the reasons I took this route through Oklahoma's Panhandle is that I was advised not to ride on US 54 in Texas as it is very busy with trucks and has no shoulders. The Oklahoma section, though, is nice and wide and a great road to ride on. The towns and services are also nicely spaced so I don't have to worry about carrying extra water.

Yup, I'm in farming country

This part of the US sits on a huge reserve of natural gas, and these are a regular sight

Might as well go all the way when your town's name is made fun of

I entered Kansas at Liberal, reputedly named after a generous land owner who offered free water to travellers ("How liberal of you"). One of the town's attractions is a house identical to the one in "Wizard of Oz" which they've declared as Dorothy's House. It's a kitschy kind of stop, but a fitting welcome into Kansas.

I just hope they're not liberal with the branding iron

Dorothy refuses to get on the bike

The headwind was wearing me out so I settled for a peaceful campground ten miles out of town. It was quite a ways down a dirt road, but it had great facilities and cost only $5.

The wind had lightened up the next day and shifted slightly coming from the southeast. The land was flat with some occasional dips, and since the highway was parallel to the railroad it was lined with grain elevators that are visible for a long distance. No sooner would I pass one and the next one would pop up on the horizon 10 or 15 miles away.

Cycling in flat terrain gets me into a meditative trance. My mind would completely empty itself and be at rest. It's an extremely peaceful feeling, and once in a while I would ask myself what I'm thinking of and the answer would be nothing. Just an existential visual processing of the road, the fields and the sky.

Historical plaques here seem balanced, you can read the pain on both sides

One of the places I really wanted to see in Kansas is the town of Greensburg which was completely flattened by a tornado on 2007. I saw a documentary on the rebuilding about five years ago, and it is a neat story of hope and renewal. The town's leaders decided that they would rebuild using the highest environmental standards, and they now have the highest ratio of LEED Platinum buildings per capita. The town is still struggling, only half of its former population has returned, but what they do have is a good seed to start off with. 100% of their electricity is produced with wind turbines and they have excess that they sell off

I took half a day to tour some of the buildings, and I was lucky enough to tag along with a group from Kansas State University who had a guide take us through the new school and its unique features. One of the great ideas that were built was a "Business Incubator", a building that houses and encourages new small businesses to grow. The new main street, although still a little toothy, is a model of a pleasant walkable street with wide sidewalks and plantings — a humane step in the right direction instead of succumbing to the easy mediocrity of strip malls and big box stores. It's still too early to tell how Greensburg will fare in the future, it certainly has had its successes and failures. But it is nice to know that good intentions and bold ideas are alive and well in America.