Kansas Memories Marked By Contrasts

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. _ Carl and I had a delightful visit with Tom and Mary Burnham last evening in Junction City. They were the couple that took us in after our longest day of pedaling (158 miles) on our 1976 cross-country bicycle trip . We were trying to get to Topeka for the July 4 Bicentennial celebration, assuming the capital would go all out with a big show.

We wound up camping in Junction City that July 3 night and learned of the huge Sundown Salute celebration over at Millford Lake the next day. We biked over there and as we were milling through the crowd, we met the Burnhams with several other families.

They were probably sorry they invited us to picnic with them because of our voracious appetites. We ate, and ate, and ate. And then ate more. The Bicentennial celebration was outstanding being tied in with nearby Ft. Riley. It was very late when everything ended so the Burnhams drew us a map to their house to sleep in their basement. Mary took the time to do our laundry and sent us off the next day with a big breakfast and packed lunches. I'll have to admit being surprised by their trust level as they had three daughters, I had forgotten until Tom reminded us that they had a pet Doberman at the time. Carl remembered the Doberman well. The Burnhams today were just as cordial to our families. We had a wonderful visit and got to meet a lot of their neighbors and friends. Miserable Night in a Ball Park:

As wonderful as our Bicentennial was in Junction City during our bike tour, Carl and I had some not-so-wonderful experiences as we made our way out of Kansas. The first was a huge fistfight we got into at the Crown Plaza Mall in Kansas City. Shoppers had to break up our brawl in the parking garage. Needless to say, it cooled our relationship to where we barely spoke the rest of that day and into the next. The evening of our mall skirmish, we had made it to Garden City, Mo. We did our usual scouting around for a free place to sleep and waited until dusk to go there. It was at the small city park. In a ball field. The mosquitoes were horrible. So we rolled our sleeping bags out on the top bleacher to hopefully catch a little breeze. Some time during the night my heavy pack which I had placed in the foot of my bag dangled off the edge and pulled me down with it. The fall bruised and scraped me up pretty bad. The commotion woke Carl, who yelled at me for waking him. That set the neighborhood dogs off and it was about an hour before they finally shut up. Then, just as we settled in to sleep, it started raining. According to my trip diaries, this was all about 3 a.m. and we just decided to sleep through the rain. We revisited that ball park yesterday and I reclined on the bleachers for old time's sake. The taller concrete bleachers had long been replaced with shorter ones and there are now dugouts that would have made excellent shelter. Dugouts and fire tower platforms were among our favorite spots during that summer because they were discreet.