Day 47: Bazine

Distance:44 avg: 12

Today was a short day because I have a lot of time to kill between here and Wichita. So I did a quick easy 32 miles over to Ness City. I did some math on my map and determined that I should just call it a short day and headed to Elaine’s Bicycle Oasis.

Elaine is a very nice older lady. Her and her husband Dan run the place. Elaine had to sort a lot of mulberries today. She seemed to really want someone to talk to while sorting so I did my best to accomodate. And while she is the sweetest lady, she admits herself to being a bit odd.

She showed me a box of stuff. Inside was her great uncles gall and kidney stones. She then pulled out a rock and handed it to me. “Taste it.” I did, it was salt, no discernible gall or kidney flavor. Thank god. “it’s from a salt mine near here.”

She then read to me the story she had written about her cat, “Caterina The Ballerina.” She really loves her cat, and so she wrote a story about how they met and how her cat dreams of being a ballerina. She’d like to make it into a kids story.

I showed her my drawings and mentioned Mustaches. I mentioned Nikola Tesla, ‘Master of Electricity’. She then told me about a book called Secrets of Lost Civilizations by Rene Norberger(guessing at spelling and title). In this book supposedly all technology we use, nuclear power, electricity, was invented by a lost civilization. “But they’re covering it up.”

“Who’s they?” I ask.

“Science.”

“Ah.” I nod. I decline to mention that this is not a person.

“The archeologists know all about it. But the scientists are covering it up.” I decline to mention that archeologists are scientists. “But I don’t really have a scientific mind.”

Gosh, who would have thought that in a town of 300 in Kansas I’d run into some interesting perspectives on the world! 🙂