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    Laid Back on the Chisholm Trail : Texas to Canada on My Recumbent Bicycle
    Laid Back on the Chisholm Trail : Texas to Canada on My Recumbent Bicycle
    Laid Back on the Chisholm Trail : Texas to Canada on My Recumbent Bicycle
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Laid Back on the Chisholm Trail : Texas to Canada on My Recumbent Bicycle

    By Jim Reeves

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Riding my recumbent bicycle from Abilene, Texas to Canada along the Chisholm Trail as part of a thirty year anniversary of marriage.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateApr 6, 2011
    ISBN9781257412068
    Laid Back on the Chisholm Trail : Texas to Canada on My Recumbent Bicycle

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      Book preview

      Laid Back on the Chisholm Trail - Jim Reeves

      e9781257412068_cover.jpg

      Laid Back on the Chislom Trail

      Texas to Canada on my recumbent bicycle

      Jim Reeves

      9781257412068

      Copyright © by Jim Reeves

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      Foreword:

      Before the trip

      Day One—Seymour, Texas

      Day Two—Duncan, Oklahoma

      Day Three—rest day

      Day Four—Kingfisher

      Day Five—Caldwell, Kansas

      Day Six—El Dorado, Kansas

      Day Seven—Junction City, Kansas

      Day Eight—Rest Day

      Day Nine—Beatrice, Nebraska

      Day Ten—Wahoo, Nebraska

      Day Eleven—Le Mars, Iowa

      Day Twelve—rest in Le Mars

      Day Thirteen—Marshall, Minnesota

      Day Fourteen—Morris, Minnesota

      Day Fifteen—Rest Day

      Day Sixteen—Detroit Lakes

      Day Seventeen—Thief River Falls

      Day Eighteen—Canada!

      Foreword:

      My trip from Texas to Canada was supposed to be like an explorer’s trip of old—go with favorable winds and don’t stop until you find gold. Many people filled my sails with the wind I needed to make my way northward. I need to thank them publicly for their help.

      My wife, Beth, of thirty years gets number one billing. To me, she has the face that could launch a thousand ships. Her restless spirit attracted me to her years ago. I dedicate this book to her.

      My daughters, Savanna and Zia, are the joy of my life. I relied on them to keep me up and sane many times on the trip. Thanks, girls! Dick and June Haye, my parents-in-law—thank you for taking care of my Baby (okay, I know she was your baby before she was mine) while I took off. You’re both the tops!

      To my friend, Gary Musgrave, my hat would be off to you, but I’d sunburn my head! Thanks for the levity, Griz…did I scratch the bear’s behind? You kill me!

      And to Carol Wells, world texting champ—remember who hooked you and Gary up!

      Thanks also to my joker of a brother-in-saw Mark Haye who encouraged me to throw my cell phone on a truck headed for Canada while I was still in Oklahoma, my awesome cousin Justin Elms, my nephews Jackson and Jordan Murrietta and my niece Mandy Judah, to Paul and Wanda Barnum who actually gave the name to the straight and narrow path, they’ve been on it so long, to Larry Henderson, Tim Johnston, Brett and Debra McCracken, the Galloway family, Connie McCoy, to Paul Shulze, Stan Treanor, and Larry Millar who all led me into this recumbent world, to the sacker at United Supermarket who was the first person to congratulate me, and my coach, Gras.

      And Mom, thanks for praying for me out there on the road!

      Before the trip

      Talk is so cheap these days. I’m a fifty-three year old physics teacher, so I guess you could say I talk for a living. I was talking to a high school sacker at a local grocery store as he carried my groceries to my car about my plans for the summer. I told him that I planned to ride my bike to Canada. He told me, Congratulations! If only all of life were that easy—speak the words and be credited with their intention. What happened to the days of Charles Lindbergh or Roger Bannister where people had to struggle for years to achieve goals that were thought to be unachievable, and the folks who struggled along with them but fell short were thrown into the trash can of history? I know in riding my bike from Texas to Canada I won’t be the first, the fastest or the most distinctive in any way whatsoever, but I at least want to have to do it before I am congratulated for doing it. It came to me one day that I had become mostly an observer of the actions of others on websites like YouTube. It had gotten so bad that I was now watching the reaction of others as they watched YouTube videos that I had already watched many times before. I wanted to do something that couldn’t be reduced to a video clip to be watched by others on the internet.

      Talk is cheap, but it has its uses. I was psyching up for punching my way out of the wet paper sack that I found myself in and actually following through with my threat (plan) to ride to Canada. I found the more I talked about it the harder it was to back out of it. I told people that I knew would come back and ask me how my summer trip went, hoping all the time to embarrass me when I told them I hadn’t done it. I told my friends and workmates who were encouragers deep down in their hearts. I told strangers like the sacker who congratulated me. After awhile as I started to make some solid plans, talk wasn’t the only thing flowing out of me—money started flowing, as well. Talk is cheap, but money talks, doesn’t it? Figure that one out! I started buying equipment for the trip that would serve the same purpose—make me follow through.

      I am basically a cheapskate so if I shell out some money for something, I want to see it used!

      My wife Beth was a tremendous engine of encouragement, as she has been for the thirty years of our marriage. Even when it looked like she was going to have to endure an operation on her foot to take out some inflamed nerves around the time of my departure, she made arrangements for her parents to come take care of her so I could leave on my adventure as scheduled. There went that excuse for not going! Talk about your mommy birds kicking the chicks out of the nest when she thinks they are ready to fly! She knows me all too well. Two things were calling me around the time of her surgery—the open road and the couch in front of that big screen TV. With her dad here on the couch watching the Golf Channel, I was left with the open road option.

      This trip was actually designed to be a part of our celebration of being married for thirty years. The plan was for me to ride up to Canada, for her to leave Abilene just in time to meet me up there at the border in our truck, and then for both of us to drive on to her old hometown of Seattle together like we did thirty years ago as newlyweds. Once I made it to the border and she came and got me I was turning the reins over to her for where we went and what we did and who we visited. It was the least I could do for her relentless pursuit of a storybook marriage with a half-witted hot head of a husband as her worser half. She is a wonderful example of standing by your man even when folks are looking at you like you are crazy for doing so.

      Of the things I enjoyed about the trip, some of the most fulfilling were outfitting for the trip—looking in bike shops and online for bike equipment and clothing that I would need for the long haul.

      I bought special tires for the bike—Marathon Plus tires by Schwalbe—that were made of a quarter inch of Kevlar, the material in bullet proof vests. I did not want to have a flat, because my history of fixing flats is an abhorrent one. Inner tubes that I patch and pump back up usually make it two or three miles before I have to pull over and try again. And brand new inner tube has a lifespan of just a few more miles. I just haven’t mastered the art of tire maintenance. (That is not something that a real man easily admits to, so let’s just keep it between us, okay?) So, on a long trip, if I can have ten pound tires—filled to the brim with green goop—that are flat-proof, I am one happy guy!

      I made a fairing for the back half of the bike out of some coroplast, the material that political signs are made of. Whether it was psychological or not, the fairing seemed to give me a little more speed out in the wind. The coroplast was bright yellow, so it added a little bit to

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