On day 43 of Spokes, we've stayed at 34 different places so far. The longest we've ever been in one place was 3 nights. So we've gotten very used to packing and unpacking all of our gear in the van. Caralyn, Evan, and I have mastered how to use every inch of the space effectively. Here's a rundown of all the different places we've slept.
Warm Showers Hosts:
Often as former bike travelers or cycling enthusiasts understanding the difficulties of life on two wheels, WarmShowers hosts open up their homes for free to others. We've met some amazing people along the way and I've never had a bad experience. Our hosts have welcomed us into their lives for a day, cooked us delicious meals, showed us around their vineyard, invited us to a show, drove us across state lines for ice cream, helped fix our bikes, and let us play with countless dogs and cats. Our accommodations range from sleeping in tents in a backyard to everyone having their own bed. I'm so grateful to these former strangers for their generosity!
Friends and Family:
With eight people from all over the country, many of us have friends and family along our route that we've graciously stayed with. Although we haven't slept at any of our homes, we've met up with Leah's, Bill's, Erin's, and Evan's parents and siblings.
Camping:
I grew up camping in the summers with my family, and memories of sleeping outside and cooking on a fire always bring me joy. Many of the other spokes members have never camped before so I've loved sharing this part of my life. We've had to deal with rain, mud, lots of bugs, sometimes not having showers, and cooking with a small camp stove, so camping is definitely not as glamorous as staying inside. We also take 30-60 min longer in the morning just to clean up our tents and cooking gear. It's a lot of fun to camp, but every day would be exhausting.
Churches:
Many churches have been extremely accommodating - if we can get them to respond at all. Sometimes we email 20-30 churches in a town and only get 1 response. Those that do respond, however, have been amazing - giving us access to their extra rooms to put our sleeping bags and their kitchen for cooking. There's only one downside: no showers, so we typically head to a local swimming pool or YMCA to clean up.
Fire Stations:
Today we stayed at our first fire station in Colby, Kansas! Lance was super nice and we chatted with him as we made dinner. We set out our sleeping bags upstairs and could take showers! Luckily, we weren't woken up by any alarms in the middle of the night.
------
Biking update:
Today we flew kites.
After taping together dowels and scraps of fabric (or his shirt in Devin's case) and tying ribboned tails and spools of yarn from the "Rapid Prototyping" workshop to the kites, we harnessed the power of the Colby, Kansas wind to send our creations soaring.
Or at least we tried to. Sometimes they worked, but mostly they didn't. The kites would catch a puff of wind, then twist and spiral towards the ground. We broke at least 6 or 7 dowels in our experiments, and no one actually made a kite that worked.
We biked 90 miles today, from WaKeeney to Colby, so we decided to have a bit of fun at the fire station.
