flabergastation

well i decided to write this is a font color that would be harder for older folks, who know better, to read. we are in ness city. i just finished a book about space and time and black holes and ness city has become a black hole. it won't let us out. you may have just read alex's last email that said things were looking up. that was when things were looking up. the following day or yesterday things turned nasty. we rode hard through serious wind ( about 30 miles an hour or more) and the temperature was up to 106. after 30 miles we hit what was then Utopia, Ness City. We were really tired but thought we would still make it to Scott City another 56 miles away. we should have know by the fact that the "Frigid Cream" stand didn't have ice cream that things had turned against us. we tried to leave and after about 3.5 miles we turned around because we could hardly ride 8 miles an hour (the day before we averaged 15). so we go back into ness city similar to the way that a photon is sucked back into the black hole. we decide we cannot be outside in the heat and wind so we go to our only option, the Derrick Inn. they have 2 options, a motel 7 blocks down the road or a nicer motel/hotel where you check in. since the motel is cheaper we get it. 7 blocks later we get into our room. we are not high maintainance so anything i say is coming from someone who has been sleeping on picnic tables for a month. the place was an absolute dump. everything felt dirty. the bathroom had no soap. it was hot. the AC would turn on but didn't help much because door to our room gaps that kept our room nice and toasty. the last straw was the cable. our tv didn't work and alex wanted no needed to see the stanley cup. oh yeah and my bed's blanket had a cigarrette hole. so alex gets on his bike and bikes 7 blocks back to get a new room. he returns with a new one and we go to check out our new room. this one has working cable but one of the beds isn't made and had clearly been slept in recently. i felt like goldilocks but alex had paid like 40 bucks for that junk. so i called the Derrick Inn and let them know how we felt about the situation ("we're pretty hot and pretty tired and we're kinda mad"). upon my suggestion they upgraded us to a motel/hotel room where the cable worked and there was soap. we ate spagetti from a pizza place and listened to "Long December" on the jukebox. today has been maybe more frustrating. it started off with alex having a flat tire before we even left the parking lot. i left b/c i knew it would take a while and i wanted to get on the road. alex is more or less out of inner tubes. his tires both have gashes in the sides. so alex takes a good 30 minutes popping more tubes and patching one and finally getting a ridable bike. meanwhile i am hitting some serious wind. instead of 3.5 miles though i get a good 6.5 out of town before i take a break and try to go to the bathroom ( the wind affects everything). so then the wind is at least 30 mph and probably more. it keeps blowing me off the shoulder into the grass on the side of the rode so i decide to wait for alex. that was not to cool cause i didn't realize he had so much trouble with his tire. so i wait in the wind singing and praying for a good 45 minutes until i decide to turn around. i finally hit alex about 5 miles out of town. he didn't want to but i forced us to turn around. i couldn't pedal for 4+ hours to have only 30 miles to our day. plus with alex's tire continually letting out air he wasn't likely to make it either. we again were sucked into the black hole. we are so sick of wind and this state. alex has to get to a bike shop and i need to get back on schedule. i think we may try and hitch to Pueblo, Co a couple hundred miles away but that may be difficult with bikes and all. (that is the part i am hoping mom doesn't read) this may seem like a very negative post but it isn't. we are doing fine we just need to get out of Ness City and for that matter Kansas. also i am hoping to rid myself of any negative energy before we try and hitch. if you don't see a post within 2 weeks of this one call my mom and tell her she was right.
cruizin',
pete