Australian Road Rider — August 2017

the fi rst indicators of another tiny town up

ahead. Je more, Burde , Pawnee Rock ...

The farm machinery dealers looks like

they’re doing OK — recent seasons must have

been kind. Some farmers have got in early

with their summer crop and the fi elds are

pa erned in golden stubble and green shoots.

I’m smacking into some 747-sized bugs that

are creating quite a psychedelic spla ering of

colour on my visor. It’s hot, somewhere in the

high 30s. Chipmunks dash across the road in

front of me. Birds sit idly on the wire above the

shiny, shimmering train line.

You work hard for your miles out here, using

the same tactic to cut out big distances as you

do at home: ignore the numbers on your trip

meter and don’t look at the signs. Just let time

become irrelevant. Think. Dream. Enjoy. Tell

yourself that in a few days you will wish you

were still out here. It’s true.

I play tourist for an a ernoon and visit

Fort Larned, one of many forts along the

Santa Fe Trail where the US Army stationed

garrisons in the mid-19th century to protect

se lers heading west and keep the local Indian

tribes under the yoke. It’s not a pre y history

but we have a similar version, so the stories

of displacement, betrayals and massacres are

sadly familiar.

It’s tornado season in Kansas and over

breakfast I watch a weather channel on TV

that’s tracking half a dozen of them. Everybody

is nervous. Tornados are ephemeral, completely

unpredictable things, o en with a footprint

no bigger than a suburban house block. They

can form in an instant, completely destroy and

kill whatever gets in their way then vanish,

literally, into thin air. This part of the Midwest

is the epicentre of “Tornado Alley”.

It’s dead calm, hot and humid and the sky

is saturated with heavy green-tinged cloud

that touches the top of the power poles as I

“We’re in Kansas,

Dorothy. Trump

country. Everybody

flies the flag. Roadside

billboards proclaim the

evils of abortion”

r Memorial Day is America’s equivalent to Anzac Day.

Veterans ride to Washington DC for their annual rally, The Patriot Ride.

r Belly Busters Crab Shack. Bill was a fan.

AUSTRALIAN ROAD RIDER | 69

ROUTE 50: THE LONELIEST ROAD IN AMERICA PART II

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