Monday, September 1, 2014

Location: - Joplin MO Miles = 66, Ave MPH = 11.7 Cum. Miles = 2804

Thursday August 28

Quote of the Day: "There is no such thing as breaking in the seat, the seat breaks you in."

I pulled into a convenience store in Edna to get out of the heat and get some fluids. As you can see I interrupted the "town meeting".


This is Christy who was also at the store - thank you Christy for your donation and interest in Soldier's Best Friend - sorry for the poorly exposed photo:


It has been interesting to see the various style of barns as I move across the country. This is the style in this part of the country:


Chetopa gets greedy and claims to be both the catfish as well as pecan capital of Kansas. About 150 miles back west I started to see pecan groves. I had no idea Kansas grew pecans:


This is Debbie and Patty part of the staff in the Chetopa Town Hall. Thank you very much for your donations ladies:


Oh I was feelin' this - wish I could have waded right in with them due to the afternoon heat:


This is the Neosho River coming out of Chetopa. As you can see the rivers are getting a bit more "lazy" in this part of the country:


A touch more of the road with no shoulder as I approached Joplin MO. Still in Kansas here. Some drivers expect a cyclist to ride in the gravel but this stuff is so soft the bike would be down in a heartbeat:


Another milestone:


Here is another style of fence post. It is the old make use of what you have in abundance - in this case rocks. What you can't see in the photo is the wire netting that is placed in a circle to create a column in which the rocks are piled. I think  it has a nice aesthetic look:


This is Lewis and Jennifer my hosts in Joplin. Great couple!! Both are runners and cyclists. Lewis recently did a portion of the Great Divide ride and so knew what it was like to be on the road.

Joplin is another place that had a huge tornado in 2011. Over 160 people killed. Lewis was doing triage at his place of work and many hours later went home to to find his home destroyed. They mentioned that the hospital was so overwhelmed the authorities were placing the wounded in private vans and Chevy Suburbans and asking the owners to drive the patients to hospitals outside of the "war zone".

Neither Lewis or Jennifer are on Warm Showers but I set a request to be hosted to one of their friends who couldn't host but relayed my request on to them. Isn't that great!!

They treated me to dinner at the 609 restaurant in downtown Joplin. I was supposed to treat, but Lewis pulled a fast one on me.  Awesome food and a sound nights sleep. Thank you so much guys:


I have two TV interviews tomorrow so will take a rest day in Joplin. Even after all these miles I am still feeling the seat as the afternoon wears on. What has helped is that I am wearing two bike shorts now for extra padding. And no the rider does not break in the seat - it is the other way around.

This is one of the stations I will interview with:


A big thank you to the wonderful staff at the Drury Inn that hosted me!!!



About Soldiers Best Friend ..... If you have been following along you already know that I am trying to collect donations for the charity called Soldiers Best Friend. This is a charity that provides service dogs to Vets that are suffering from PTSD. These dogs can literally be life savers for these men and women.

My blog averages approximately 175 hits per day. I think that suggests folks are interested in the trip and hopefully are being informed and entertained. I am at the half-way point of the trip at 2151 miles. I consider this my job for the summer of 2014. I am putting in the the "blood, sweat, and gears" to steal a phrase - so would you consider a donation to this very worthy cause?

I've done the math for you .... My entire trip is going to be approximately 4200 miles long. Do you think you could donate $.006 per mile (like about slightly more than 1/2 cent per mile)?? If so then that would be a $25 dollar donation to SBF. Or better yet could you afford to donate at $.012 per mile (1.2 cents per mile) then that would be about a $50 donation. And so on ....  give what you can - I know this sounds like a Nation Public Radio fund drive but come on - what a worthy cause!!

Please follow the link below to donate and include my name - just "Neil" will do or "Neal" if you like that spelling better:):)



It's time folks please.......
  
And finally please remember the cause -   soldiersbestfriend.org  I will go into this in more detail and perhaps some level of haranguing later on, but for now here is the link .... and an additional link for donation   SoldiersBestFriend - Donate Please :):)   Oh and I would be a lot more comfortable if you use the "honorarium" option vs the "memoriam" option - you'll understand when you click on the link:):).   

As you donate please enter my name in the "In Honor of Spot" so the folks at SBF can tally the results to encourage me and let me know WE are getting something done TOGETHER. I recognize we are really trying to honor the Vets but this is the only way SBF can tally the results of this drive (tour).

1 comment:

  1. You're not in Kansas anymore! Haha...I am glad to read that you are making good progress and had a few interviews. I hope that those went well!

    ReplyDelete