The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-06-29
Trip Through Kansas Into
l. Colorado on a Bicycle.
Has It's Advantages Over Rail-
road Travel.
SEE MORE OF COUNTRY
Also Affords Opportunity OF
Visiting Towns.
Five Hundred Miles in Eleven
and Half Days.
SEE MORE OF COUNTRY

A Journey to Colorado on bicycle;
something too absurd to be thought or
for a moment in these days of cheap
railroad rates, you say.
But does it ever occur to the aver
age person how very little of ones
country can be seen from the win
dow of a railroad train?
You board the train in Topeka at
noon today and tomorrow noon are
half a thousand miles away; the inter-
venfng night has severed all connec-
ton between the scenes of yesterday
and those of today, all sense OF df-
rection and location is gone, and at
best you have had but a fleeing
glimpse of a narrow strip of country
on one side of a car and of perhaps the
worst part of a few towns
The writer has often felt a desire to
really know something of his own
state. To travel from place to place in
the full light of day, with an unob-
structed view on every side, the land
scape gradually unrolling before him,
scene following scene in natural Sc
quence, and with full time to observe
and enjoy each city and town as it is
reached.
I These reasons, and no desire for the
prreakish or extraordinary, impelled
him to take a wheel trip across the
length of Kansas well into Colorado.
There are several ways of making
cars
First and best-you can walk. But
that takes more time than the average
man can spare.
Second-Ride or drive a horse. But,
then you have the animal to feed and
care for and it may get sick and die.
Third-Go on motor cycle or in
an automobile. These, however, may
give out suddenly, miles from a repair
shop, leaving you no way to get into
port except by the expenditure of
great deal of time. money or energy or
of all three.
The fourth way-Ride a bicycle.
This plan seemed best and subsequent
experience proved this opinion not
without good foundation.
A bicycle, in the first place is not
expensive. It is simple to understand
and easy to repair. and can, when ex-
IRENE occasion arises, be carried by its
rider for considerable distances with
out undue hardships.
Most any person can average As or
so miles a day on a bicycle. when the
roads are fairly good, and the weather
not too warm.
Westward from Topeka, in the latter
part of May or the first part of June IS
about as satisfactory as to direction
then the naturally good western roads
are at their best, and the heat of sum-
mer has not begun to get in its work.
West to SaIina
I rode up the Kaw and Smoky Hill
valleys as far as Salina, crossed over
the low divide into the Arkansas val |
ley by way of Lindsborg, Mcpherson
and Lyons, and at Great Bend follow |
ed up the Arkansas Valley as far as
Las Animas, Col The original inten- |
ton was to have ridden to Pueblo, but !
a heavy rain caused such a delay that |
1t seemed best to terminate the bicycle !
journey at Las Animas.
BY taking this route, one has good |
roads clear to Pueblo and Colorado !
Springs, railroads all the way to guide, !
available for travel as a last resort, sees |
interesting country and quite as i'm |
portant. there is a good town to stop |
at each and every night. And I must |
say any over accumulation of local /
pride a person may have from long
living in one locality. will be reduced |
and there will be a lot of useful and |
pleasant experience gained.
Diary of the Trip.
On such a trip a person should keep |
a diary or sort of log book. The writer
kept one and here are a few extracts 1
from each days happenings:
Monday. May 20. 1907. Started |
from Topeka at $40 a. m. with about