US-50 Coast-to-Coast: Day 6

I was on the road in Jefferson City at 6:30 am. It was already 76 degrees and humid.  The road was very much a divided highway at 65 MPH on the way to Kansas City. Nice easy rolling hills. 

In Kansas City, I stopped at Macdonald’s for Coffee. Coming out I followed a car and got into the left turn lane.  A guy and his wife pulled up next to me on my right side and pointed to the double line on my right. He then said “you are in the incoming lane.”, meaning that cars will be coming right at you. I recognized my mistake and said “sorry, I was just following the car in front of me”.  He said “people do it all the time”.  He told me he has a Harley and I told him about the trip. All this while waiting for a turn signal. We ended up going the same way on the highway for some time.  

Going South out of Kansas City the road turns into I-35 and 75 MPH. I was chasing a storm so the temperature stayed in the 70s until turned West at Emporia.  After Emporia the temperature started to climb into the 90s.  By, 2:00 PM it had stabilized around 100 degrees, with a high of 101.  For the next 4 hours the road was back to the two lane road.  The landscape had changed from the lush fields of Missouri to the dry plains of Kansas. 

At one point there was road construction and they had the road down to one lane. I was riding down the lane and I heard a noise that sounded like I had a flat tire. I was thinking “this is really a bad spot to have a flat”.  So I pulled into the grass on the side of the road, just as a truck passed by me. Then I heard the same noise coming from the truck and I realized that I was riding on the shoulder with very deep ridges every few feet. I jumped back on the highway and took off.  I was really freaked out for a bit.

I rolled into hotel parking lot at Dodge City, KS at 5:30 PM.  The ride was 11 hours, with 8 hours of drive time and 479 miles.

The hotel in Dodge City was next to a casino, which was state run. I went over for dinner and the menu selection was minimal to say the least and the drink selection was few. I asked the server about the casino and she simply said "It is state run, which limits what we can serve."