Blown away in Kansas

I’ve slept in a tent during storms, kind of relaxing. But in Kansas, the storm blew my tent over so far that it touched my face, while I laid flat inside. It was scary, but everyone in my group has spent a lot of time in tents, so we knew what to do. When the weather gets bad, we get our raingear out and get ready to run to shelter, if needed. In my case, I have one more step after getting my raingear out. I start recording video.

The 1-minute video below isn’t very clear, but if you look carefully, you can see the left side of my tent coming down. The blue thing in the middle is a towel I hang from inside, to let it dry out overnight.

Other days in Kansas were much less exciting. We cycled through hundreds of miles of flat, straight roads. We even joked that any turn was a wrong turn because we took the same straight road for hundreds of miles, with a strong wind.

Usually, the wind was a cross-wind, and one day, it was a 30 MPH tail wind. My normal cycling speed is about 11 MPH. With that tail wind, I doubled that speed without peddling much.

Even though Kansas is flat with a lot of fields. There were still some fun sights. Some of them are with old buildings, and some are with colorful plants. I hope the colors come out in these pictures.

Another storm barely missed us when we left Kansas. About 20 miles behind us, a storm flooded Main Street and produced 1”-2” hail. Overall, the storms were a small part of Kansas. The long roads and quiet miles is what I’ll remember most. I listened to about half of the Grapes of Wrath audio book, and I had a lot of good time to sort out my thoughts.

3 thoughts on “Blown away in Kansas

  1. Wow. That wind in the video doesn’t look fun. Scary to have your ur house falling down around you. Hope you get a few more of those tail winds!

  2. Wow again! It looked like a lot of rain was coming through your little tent. How do you dry your stuff on a trip like this if this happens?

    • Only a little rain got into my tent, and most of my gear is stored in water-proof bags or panniers. When something does get wet, I pack it, cycle on, and in a day or two, a hot and windy day shows up. On those days, we put anything that’s wet or damp in the sun, and it quickly dries.

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