Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Wind. Rain. Kansas.

Déjà vu all over again.

Today’s ride started out just like yesterday, except I swear I saw Miss Gulch pedaling wildly across the blackening Kansas sky.  Clouds were amassing over our heads into a dark and ominous blanket of gray. The wind was furious and I was certain someone was going to drop a house somewhere.

We avoided the rain for a while, but eventually it caught us. Luckily, it didn’t last as long as it could have, but the skies continued to threaten all day, with the sun making nothing more than occasional cameo appearances.

There wasn’t a lot to look at as we drove across the balance of Kansas into Nebraska. My observation to Jason as we drove past cornfields for an hour, “If there’s this much corn in Kansas, and Nebraska is the Cornhusker State, what the hell will that landscape look like?”

“The same,” he replied. “Only flatter.”

And so it was.

Two words for Nebraska - wind and corn.

The wind was worse in Nebraska than it has been in Kansas.  The landscape was flat and green, and there was nothing to stop it from blowing, no, howling, across the fields and road.  It was brutal.  No tree groves, no hillsides, no anything to slow down what I later learned were 30 mph gusts. I was having a hard time keeping my helmet on; I don’t know how Jason kept the bike on the road. After a while, I turned the camera off. It was a struggle to hold it up, let alone hold it still enough to take a picture, but then again, how many pictures of corn does one really need?

I wish I could find the words to accurately describe the expanse of acreage that continued as far as the eye could see on either side of the two-lane highway we traveled. Corn, corn and more corn. And just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be another stalk….more corn. Sure, there was the occasional wheat field, and a few fields filled with furrowed rows of non-descript green leaves, a handful of cattle standing under a tree and the requisite barns and farmsteads, but they were few and far between. I found myself trying to conger something, anything else to look at, to no avail.

It was a difficult ride, more physical and cold than any other since we left New Jersey. We were so exhausted when we got to our hotel in Omaha, we took a nap.

The best thing about today has been the four Bruin goals in the first period, and now a fifth with less than 11 minutes to go. Here’s to a Game 7 and no rain (or wind) tomorrow. But since we’re heading to Iowa, I have a sinking suspicion there’s no avoiding the corn.