My beautiful vista was quite nice to wake to. Packing up for the day I knew I was in for a long one since I didn’t expect to hit Belleville until the next day and there were no towns in between to speak of. Well, just no towns in between at all for 26 miles. Its Kansas, ya gotta love it.
So off I went, legs on auto pilot and brain on imagination creation mode thinking up little things along the way letting the eyes entertain themselves with scenery as the brain tuned out. I got about eight miles like that until lo and behold Russ and his little lady, Wilma, appeared heading home. I happened to be right in front of their turn off so they asked if I needed water or anything. I took them up on it saying I’m easy to find, just head west down 36.
Twenty minutes later Russ pulled up again, this time in a pick up. It seemed to me each time I saw him his car changed. Curious. He had two little bottles of freshly distilled water with bits of ice and then a half gallon jug of completely frozen water. He told me he and his wife got paranoid about their water and had it checked only to find anti-freeze and god knows what else in there. Suppose y’all should check yours out. Anyway, we chopped ice for a bit on the back of his pickup to fit it in my jugs and finally he asked if I wanted to update the site back at his place and get some lunch. Of course I took him up on that.
They were moving a freezer around so I helped with that, and saw the house as they were redoing it then sat at the computer for a bit. His daughter and her boyfriend came over so we all hung out having lunch for a good two hours or so. I got back on the road full of food, water, and a freshly repaired water bottle thanks to Russ’ many, many efforts the whole four hours I was there. I resigned myself to thinking I wouldn’t get many miles in since I stayed so long but surprised myself.
I walked to Cuba and sat on a bench for a bit which was six miles from where Russ picked me up and dropped me back at. Then I went another five miles figuring to find a place and bed down, but couldn’t find one for another mile so all in all I went 19 by the day’s end. I found a nice little glade a quarter of a mile down a dirt side road and pitched up in there. I lay back in comfort as the night washed over me and swept me to sleep.