from today, into Dodge City

Well, I've made it into what must be the gateway to the Wild West. Every other shop has the name"Wyatt Earp" in its title.

The ride today from Coldwater started in a solid fog... a little scary on a two lane highway, but visibility wasn't so bad that we needed to stop riding. Anita, Meredith and I rode together for the morning and made a 1 mile detour into Greenburg, the town I mentioned before that a tornado destroyed back in May.

Unbeliveable is all I can really say. Seeing a tornado damaged town first hand is unreal and the only comparison we could make was to Hurricane Katrina-like damage everywhere. Most of the city was entirely wiped out. Trees had been stripped of their branches but were starting to grow bush-like clumps of leaves. Whole houses and debris piles had been cleared to show only holes where basement foundations had been. Some houses were still standing, though in sad stages of falling down. There were gutters still wrapped in the tops of trees. All of the street signs had blown away with spray-painted replacements instead. There was still a fair amount of debris in the roads and some yards (though no flat tires for any of us there!! I will contend that I may have the best set of factory tires on my bike...they've treated me so well!! Only 2 flats so far [versus 10+ for many others, and on better tires too!]).

We stopped an talked ot a couple of FEMA officers who filled us in on the story of the destruction. The tornado hit on May 4th and was scaled as an E-F5--a level higher than F5, like an 5.1 appparently. The length of the town is 1.1 miles; the diameter of the twister was 1.7 miles across. It ran over the town once, turned around, went back for more, and then hovered over the town for 2 whole minutes. Most residents were still in their homes when it hit. They were saying it was the worst tornados in Kansas in memory. Again, unbelievable.

We also stopped and met a woman named Ella Mae Mars who lost two homes in the tornado, an old one she was living in and another she and her husband had just finished remodeling. She showed us pictures, pointed out the various states of her neighbors' homes; she was so sweet. She was not in Greenburg when the tornado hit, thankfully.

The rest of the ride past with the Kansas countryside--fairly flat and broad. Lots of farms, really pretty though!

gotta go! affordable housing curriculum to research.

cvh