You can knock it, you can rock it, you can go to Timbuktu

The hotel was a smart move last night. The storm hit in the late evening and continued all night long. We didn't get up til late and decided on an easy day, aiming for Bazene, so Chris stayed in town to update his journal in the library whilst I hit the cultural trail at Fort Larned. The ride out of town was straightforward and comfortable with a cross wind from the north.

I stopped at Fort Larned, the northernmost fort defending America's old southwest frontier against Injun attacks. Sadly it wasn't very impressive as it looked more like a couple of village schools in Berkshire! After this little stop I headed off but had to take a turn to get to Rush Center which meant heading north into the wind. This made for a slow and tough 17 miles which took almost 2 hours.



A quick microwaved burger and some chocolate at the Rush Center garage and I turned west which gave me a much nicer ride all the way into Bazine. I am carrying 2 phones - my UK iphone and a US Verizon mobile and on this part of the country I am reliant on the US one for signal. Just outside Bazine I took a call from Larry who I haven't seen since Pittsburg and we were about to swap locations when the phone ran out of credit and died on me (in the US on pay as you go phones you get charged for receiving calls it seems!). Bazine had no shop to buy top-up with and the only payphone was broken so I swore a bit, bashed the payphone a bit and headed over to the cyclist hostel I was going to meet Chris at.



The hostel was seemingly locked up and the guide map said to ring for availability but being phoneless I couldn't and so I decided to head on to Ness City 12 miles down the road. I made super quick time to Ness and with more storms on the horizon grabbed an über-cheap motel room then found a shop with phone vouchers. After updating Chris on the plan and leaving Larry a message I settled in with some more crap food to the sound of Mexican manual labourers in the surrounding rooms drinking and playing guitars.

The cow at the top was living in a field next to the hostel in Bazine and looked like it owned the field it was that relaxed.