Jim and Gabriela's Tandem Travels: The Land that Time Forgot

Here we are in Joes, Colorado....a place that once had three gas stations, three restaurants, and hundreds of people. It's now a virtual ghost town.

When I asked a store clerk about its claim to fame, she thought for a minute and said, "well, back in '29, they had a great basketball team, 3rd in the nation." that's it. You see, this used to be the main road to Denver from Kansas. When I-70 was built in the 70s, this area slowly withered away, schools began to consolidate, people drifted south and north, and today it's just shadows of former towns with an occasional store.
"Six man football," an old farmer at the Cope store told us, "that's all we got." With so few high school aged children here now, the local schools can barely field a six man team.
The right set of eyes can travel through these towns and see them in their old

glory, with busy main streets and 12 man football teams. The ghost structures of old hotels and cafes and drive-ins still remain, along with the wisdom of the people. Here are a few doses of this wisdom:
"Do you see any snakes on the roads in the morning," the man asks.
"Snakes?"
"Yeah, rattlers like the cool roads in the early morning."
"Well, we're not early morning people."
"You know, they're shedding now. It makes them blind. They'll strike at anything when they're blind."

Another man, Richard, in Anton watching the storm cloud.......
"I used to work on the road crews for years. A tornado cloud looks like a huge anvil. It travels from the southwest to the northeast. The tornado comes from the southwest part of the cloud. When you stop hearing birds and animals and it gets real still, then you need to find some shelter." Richard, about 65 y.o., was wearing a gun strapped to his side. He had just come from a golfing outing where the whole course is sand and they use all wedges. "We don't have any fancy courses out here."

Just before the tornado hit, an SUV pulled up to the small church. We were sitting on the steps enjoying some dinner and watching the clouds.

"A tornado just touched down 20 miles east of here. It's moving at 25 mph. You should get inside!" And then she sped away, leaving us feeling a small part of an ancient great plains ritual, feeling the adrenaline of the clouds.

A pickup pulled up beside us as we biked into the wind again today. The voice of an old man yelled out, "hey, wanted to let you know that she's not peddlin!"

Today, we once again have a head wind. I'm finding some peace with this, learning to embrace the headwind, to love the headwind, to slow down and honor the headwind. I have given up thinking that tomorrow the wind will turn around. It won't. I see this country at 12 mph, every bug, every fence post, every bird, every dog's bark. Tomorrow, we cross into Kansas and make our way to Quinter on Sunday.