Blank Kansas, flat Nebraska and the beginning of Colorado

Our welcome to McCook, Nebraska was unexpected.

'James it's raining'

I woke up in the tent in a panic. Had we left anything out?

James reassured me.'Mari, the tent is waterproof'

Since we got to the mid-West everyone has said the same.

'We've had no rain this summer. It's been awful. All the corn has died. '

And finally here it was. After the drought, the rain.

Turns out it wasn't actually the rain. It was in fact a stealth sprinkler that had appeared from underground to periodically douse our tent with thunderous droplets. In the middle of the night this was not a welcome surprise. It was lucky we didn't put our tent on top of it. The pipe might have burst through the canvas and gone who knows where.

Just for future reference, any American city planners out there, if you are going to install night time concealed sprinklers in future, please at least put a sign up. The things you don't know about other countries.

I was expecting Kansas to be hot and flat and if I'm honest, a bit dull. Turns out that the north of the state is more flattish rather than flat. And that it has a rich and interesting history and friendly people - not at all blank. But they were right about the heat. The quicker you start in the morning, the better. Pity both of us like breakfast to be slow and easy. Two coffees and the world seems a better place.

It was on one of these boiling days that we took an extended break in a small drug store in Glasco, Kansas and where we ended up meeting Jo Cool who I mentioned in my last blog.

Joanne Cool was of course cool. She reminded me of my late gran. Bright eyed, smiley and engaging. She gave us directions to her beautiful white house on the hill. We cycled along one of Kansas' dirt roads to get there, the evening sun making the big Kansas countryside look even more beautiful.

Joanne's grandparents were original homesteaders. The Homestead Act was passed in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln.

The passage of the bill was only possible because the southern states had seceded from the union. Southerners had been concerned about competition from non-slave owning farmers and had blocked previous bills.

Homesteading meant writing your name in a box on a map in Washington. This was a way of ended land disputes as much as expanding West. If you built a house, improved the land and stayed 5 years the land was yours. And you could mean anyone with the money to pay $640 for $640 acres. Even women and African Americans could have their little piece of America. Everyone that is except the Native American tribes whose land it was in the first place. Joanne's grandparents originally from Wales had come with other family and bought the plot. She showed me the original maps.

Populating a country is add odd idea. Especially when there are other people there. In 1820 the area that is now Kansas was designated Indian territory.The Indian Removal Act of 1830 did what it said on the tin and Native American peoples were moved west to make room for tribes being moved from the east. After 1854 the lands which were found to be very fertile were designated territories and open to white settlement.

One of the legacies of homesteading is the grid system. Not unlike the Romans the Americans decided on a straight road system. Grids, endless north, south, east and west. Roads are alphabetised and as you go west the names became less imaginative. In Glasco the roads were called Eagle, Fawn and Deer. Further west there were D, E and F Road. America is built on the belief that humans can do anything, put roads anywhere no matter what nature suggests.

Another spot in Kansas are pointed to the other side of white settlement. In Oberlin we stopped for lunch in Pizza Hut. Kansas bosts the first ever Pizza Hut (don't think we were in the original), as well as the geographical centre of continental United States and not forgetting the biggest ball of twine in the world. Oberlin is famous for where the 'last Indian raid' took place in Kansas. Those pesky Indians. They wouldn't leave the settlers alone. Language is so powerful. Especially in history. I researched the context for this event.

The Cheyenne tribe were from Montana. Following the Battle of Little Big Horn, where Custer and his men were defeated by a combined force of Sioux and Cheyenne, the Cheyenne were rounded up and forced to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. They were promised a great life in this new land. However food rations, warring tribes and no medical provisions meant many died from European diseases or starvation.

Under the leadership of Dull Knife a group consisting of 84 men, 112 women and 134 children escaped the reservation. At Oberlin they attacked some settlers. There are accounts of a baby being strangled and women being attacked on the outskirts of town. The plaque that marks the event has changed over time.

In the original, the words 'murder', 'terrorised' and 'killing' were used.

It said the Cheyenne were 'Harassed only by a small troop detachment and cowboys' and they moved through Kansas killing and plundering.' and left the reservation because they were 'homesick'.

Now, the plaque at least recognises that they were 'forced' to move by the American government and that they were 'embittered by their plight'.

Clearly killing innocent people is wrong but moving indigenous people off their homeland in another context would be at very least considered an act of war.

I was trying to think of another historical equivalent of homesteading or perhaps the modern day equivalent. Settlers on the Gaza strip perhaps? Gentrification in cities? Lebensraum? One of the difficulties with history is that in trying to learn from the choices of our ancestors it is important to not judge them on the values of today or to saddle their ancestors with the full responsibility of past actions. People came to America for a better life.

Once you make people the 'other' and you treat them differently then you are saying human beings are not the same. And once people try and separate people be it in separate schools, an apartheid system, a wall in Palestine or Berlin or even set up different countries for different people, as happened in Eastern Europe after World War One, then you are saying that people cannot get along. And we can and have to get along.

The most common response from everyone we have met to our question 'If you could teach the world one thing what would it be?' has been that people should learn to get along and that we should be tolerant of each other.

We were lucky to watch Julian Castro and Michelle Obama speak at the Democratic convention from the comfort of our friend Sean's mum and Dad's RV. Tolerant, progressive and Christian,Tom and Linda are like many Americans in that they are increasingly loosing faith in Obama citing the economy and healthcare as the big issues. Four years and they are concerned nothing is better. When Michele talked about her and Barack's families she said,

'You see, Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions but who had given us something far more valuable – their unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice, and the chance to go places they had never imagined for themselves.'

We were told the same thing by Tammy who we met running a bar in Norton, Kansas. We got talking she told us of her own childhood. 'At one point my mom and us kids lived in a car. I remember my mom saying, we might not have much but we have love and that is all we need.'

She showed her capacity to love others in her actions. She and her husband had allowed their daughter's friend to come and live with them - her parents having taken no interest in her welfare. She had to live under their rules and she made the same fuss of her as she did of her own children. For her birthday they made a cake and this was the first she had celebrated. Another unsung hero.

This is what brings America together, the American Dream. The Dream has been redefined to become thankfully more inclusive with politics at least looking more like the real America.

I am mindful of the fact that to get along with all humankind requires a leap of faith. You have to trust people that you do not know and will never know. There has to be a way between naivety and cynicism which allows talented and principled people to make decisions based on decent values.

This trip has only served to secure the faith that I have in our ability as a people to get along. Every story I hear reminds me that we are all looking for the same things in our lives. Love, security and a better life for us and our families.

Elton came to talk to us at breakfast in Holyoke, Colorado. He was 92, remembered ploughing the fields with horses, fought in Europe in World War Two and every day had coffee in the same cafe and then went home to fill his wife in on any news. His father was a 'sod buster' and the first settler to fence off his land but someone else honesteaded it.

The difficulty is we do not start with a blank canvas. History does change how we understand our own present and can shape the choices we make. Understanding its complexities should however create opportunities for us as individuals and as groups. Be it coming up with a healthcare system when an extensive insurance system already exists, a school with a poor record or a country with some wrongs to acknowledge. It is bound to be difficult but it's got to be a worth doing.

Love and hope is all you need - well it's a start at least.


http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/homestead-act/15142

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/How-the-Homestead-Act-Transformed-America

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/history/sappa.html

Free at last

Back home many of my friends are bracing themselves for the first day of the new term. This year will be the first in ten I don't have those anxious school dreams but also the first when I am not looking for the ultimate notebook and pen that will make me happy, even when I'm marking books.

Thinking of you all - and can't help feeling genuine pangs of missing out seeing The City Academy, Hackney grow another year group and make that important step towards a full school and our first exam results. I will miss you this year despite the freedom of the open road.

Freedom is a complex idea. On the road today I pondered what it means for a human being. I couldn't escape the image of running naked through a corn field. Given the dried, dead and cut corn we keep passing this is not a pleasant scenario. When you don't have basic freedoms like food, housing, having a say or going to school you know what you need to be free. But there are other things that make us feel free or not free.

America is supposed to be the 'land of the free' where everyone is free to own land, set up a business or own a gun. Yet America is a land of many rules. Sometimes it can be hard to find land not owned by someone else. Last night we were stealth camping again. I love the term because if makes me feel like James Bond rolling under laser beams to avoid detection. The reality is no one really minds if in the middle of a cute little Kansas town if you put up your tent in the park and use the water fountain and rest rooms.

Last week, after the Katy trail with its flat path and trees and no views we were glad to get back on the roads. We arrived in Sedalia, Missouri as it got dark and our option for camping was the fairground site at the old railway station. This was a barren patch of grass with locked toilets and a guy with a big white beard who was camping in his teepee tent with his bike hidden inside. Despite several pianos on the now abandoned platform,(Scott Joplin's home town) it was not very appealing. Compounded by two days without a shower and a dusty trail, I really wanted a wash. We headed downtown passing a motor bike rally. We were about to join the bikers when we decided to head just a bit further to the main street. And we were so glad we did.

We cycled down the main drag and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of spectators. I spotted a woman in an election T shirt.
'What's the occasion?' I asked, presuming a political rally.
'You need to get your bikes off the street first' she told us.
Turned out it had nothing to do with politics though Phyllis was the Democratic candidate for the Senate, fighting the incumbent Republican. Her platform was however quite neutral and her cards did not mention the Democratic party at all.

This was the annual Sedalia bicycle race and the woman's race was underway. Each lap was around a mile. Pro-racers in packs sped past every 5 minutes. There was a great atmosphere on the streets so James and I took a table outside a pub. No sooner had we ordered a beer then we were approached by a couple Chris and Toby. They were brandishing an iPhone with our blog.
'Is this you?' they asked excitedly. I felt like a celebrity.

After a brief chat about our plans for camping we said goodbye. Ten minutes later Toby came back.

'We wondered if you wanted to have a bath at ours and stay in the office space ?'
I was delighted.

Toby and Chris lived down town in a property built in the 1880s. They were in the middle of refurbishment trying to keep the beautiful old features of the house. We sat and chatted in their living room, then Chris asked Toby.

'So, you gonna tell em?'
And then the story came out.

Toby had once been one of America's Most Wanted.

Toby was married for 28 years. Toby worked in a prison training dogs with prisoners as a form of rehabilitation. Over many years Toby had trained thousands of dogs and was completely trusted by the prison authorities. The job became Toby's life. And then Toby fell for an inmate who was in prison for murder - an accomplice in a car jacking. Together they planned to run away together. Meticulously orchestrated, Toby helped him escape in a dog crate. Two weeks later they were found at the address where the getaway van was registered. Toby had been too much of a law abiding citizen - 'I never handed in an assignment late, I was the perfect girl'.

After 3 years in prison she came out without a job but two business degrees. She met her husband Chris through a job and now together they are setting up a non-profit called With Conviction to help felons get work and get on their feet after they have been to prison.

Toby was certainly an unlikely ex-con. Chris summed up the situation. 'Prison set her free.' Certainly she seemed excited and positive about her new life in Sedalia. Some of her family do not want anything to do with her but some have kept close. Her advice to teach the world was 'Look forward, don't look back' and Chris pointed out how fleeting our time upon the earth.

It was inspiring to meet them both and a reminder that happiness comes in different forms.

After Sedalia we decided we would head to Kansas City - when else are you going to have the opportunity to go? My friend Jen from swimming had mentioned family in town. I sent her a message on Facebook and we were kindly set up with her aunt Vera and uncle Peter. 50 miles - no problem. Turns out that it was over 70 to the outskirts of the city. By the time we reached Peter and Vera, Peter had come out in the car to look for us and found us close to their home. 94 miles - close to our 104 record.

What a welcome. Vera had been on Lance Armstrong's website seeing what champion cyclists eat and following his recipe. She'd made a chicken pasta dish and bought Gateraid especially. She also taught us some yoga stretches for our cycling legs.

Vera called their daughter Daniella who used to be student president of the local high school and arranged a visit for us. Galen and Carolina showed us round and then we spoke to a student council leadership class. One student asked the all important question,
'Don't your butts hurt?'
The answer? A bit, sometimes. Sudo Creme is the best thing for any rash. And you just need to stand in the saddle occasionally so that blood flows to the parts that some times aren't reached. We are also now travelling lighter having posted a big box to Hawaii. You realise over time how little you need.

Shawnee Mission Northwest High School was more like a university than a school. It had about 6 different sports hall for everything ranging from wrestling to gymnastics and football. School started at 7.40 and finished before 3. The school had a relaxed feel but there were clearly a lot of routines and rules that went into making the place run like clock work. If you are late to class you go to the tardy table, first time warning and the sanctions increase. Academic performance is also linked to sport. Two Ds or one F and the coach won't let you play on the soccer team. You won't be allowed to practise but he will watch you during practice time whilst you do your homework. Now that is an incentive to work hard.

Back in Hackney, east London the most successful school has been labelled by some a 'prison' because it is so strict. And yet this year 89% of their students achieved at least 5 good exam passes including the all important English and maths. Well done Mossbourne. Gives me goose bumps thinking how this breaks the mould and shows what any young person can accomplish with the right help. These students will have freedom to choose what to do next even though they may have had less freedom during their time at school. I'm happy with that. True freedom.

We passed through Topeka the other day. Topeka was the location of the famous court case Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education. Linda Brown was not allowed to enrol in a school a few blocks from home and was told to go to the black school 7 blocks, across the rail road and a bus ride away. The case went to the Supreme Court which eventually ruled that 'separate but equal' was not true because even though separate schools had broadly the same facilities it said:

'Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.'*

How you believe you will do, has a huge impact on how you do at school. Instilling a belief of possibility and ability takes all of us further than we might otherwise travel.

America has always been an aspirant nation. Yesterday we met a man called Mr Hoffman in a lovely coffee shop in St Mary's, Kansas. He had worked on electric rockets for NASA in the 70s and told me that Neil Armstrong had died. A man on the moon - that took some dreaming before it became reality.

After the 1954 judgement when segregation in schools was ruled illegal it took another 3 years before the Little Rock Nine made desegregation a reality and President Eisenhower took over the Arkansas National Guard to escort them to school.

So as I meet more people who are envious of the freedom I have to ride the open road, the more I question what freedom really is. Somewhere around the freedom to love the life you have dreamed of whatever that may be. That said however freedom is not doing whatever you want, whenever you want. Right now I'm in an air conditioned bar in Glasco, Kansas and as much I want to stay out of the sun, I know that there are 30 miles to go and one step at a time will mean I achieve something of which I will be very proud.

Time to hit the open road.

Adendum

And no sooner had I written that then James got chatting to a lady called Joanna Cool whose Grandmother, Vester Williams was from Merthyr Tydfil. Never forget you're Welsh wherever you are. She lives in a big white house - a homestead - a mile out of town. Beautiful apparently. So that's our bed for tonight. 40 miles done - so we'll make up a few tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

The hare and the turtle

I suggested to James that we could write our own perspectives on what riding with the other person was like. He said that he thought I had a pretty good idea of what he was thinking so here goes.

The hare and the tortoise. They both got there. That's the point surely. For those of you who know us well, you'll know that James and I are good at different things. I'm good at organising fun, history, cooking and talking to people. James is good at cycling, fixing things, maths and making people laugh. When you decide to spend a year cycling together you spend a lot of time in one another's company.

James is definitely the hare. I am less the tortoise, more the food obsessed, break fixated and expert faffer. I can extend any one minute break into a good 15 minutes with the mere click of a camera, the opening of a cereal bar or a quick sun cream reapplication.

When we stop James will ask himself 'Why am I still waiting whilst Mari ...
a) cycles up this hill?
b) rummages in her bag?
c) looks at a map for the 50th time when we already know where we're going?
These are all unanswerable questions.

That said we have found a happy medium. I generally set the pace, we chat and we get there at the same time - both happy that we have done it. We also stay off highways and take the hills slowly meaning James knees will be stronger not blown out. We meet more people and the sum of our bicycling partnership creates more of an adventure. Today on the flat bicycle trail - the Katy trail that follows an old railway from St Louis along the Missouri river we made good time and I genuinely did try my hardest - peddling harder when I fell behind. We managed 75 miles in 7 hours of cycling. And there was a bistro with a live band, a special of ribs and home made baked beans and wine at the end - result. We are camping in a bandstand in this small town, Hartsburg near Jefferson, Missouri.

The trail follows the route of Lewis and Clarke. They were sent by Jefferson to 'explore the West'. The native Americans who lived there were obviously familiar with it as were the French who owned the territory before they sold it to the American government in the Louisiana purchase. A huge chunk of the states was sold by the French for 11 million franks. The trail is interesting as it points out how Lewis and Clark were helped by the native Americans to survive in this new environment. One thing I have noticed is that when Europeans came into contact with the native Americans there was a strong sense of dependency. It is when people do not make connections and think of people as 'the other' that they are willing to treat the inhumanly. This reminded me of the Milgrim experiment

Stanley Milgrim was at Yale university and began his experiment in 1961 to test human being's willingness to obey instructions. A year after the trial of Adolf Eichman in Jerusalem, he wanted to test whether then perpetrators of the Holocaust were just following orders. In the experiment all volunteers were willing to administer electric shocks to others and 60% were willing to administer lethal shocks in the name of science. His experiment also found that people were more willing to hurt others if they were telling someone else to do it. If you believe all human beings are the same you cannot do anything but treat them with love. *

The Katy trail begins in St Louis. Finding the start trail was not easy. We were cycling through Forest Park, the second biggest park in the States when a fellow spandex-clad cyclist came alongside us and asked us where we were heading. Wesley very kindly took us all the way there via his friend Marvin's house who supplied us with Gaitorade (the American equivalent of Lucozade) and stories. There is something about the kindred spirits you find in cycling. Good people. Wesley had met his wife in Forest Park. She was cycling. He asked her 'Do you want to race me?' She replied, 'Sure, on one condition - if you win - you wait for me.' He did and the rest, as they say, is history.

So the trip is more than just the cycling and ultimately our duo together is more than it would be if we were alone. It might be slower, longer, more calorific and slightly delayed but hopefully we will make more connections, enjoy the shared experience and develop greater tolerance of each other.

The first night camping in the Shwamae forest, Illinois, we had an almost disaster. James had said to me his stomach did not feel right. We were nearly at the camp site but it was very hilly. He said he might have to stop at the side of the road. He was a little way ahead so I looked out for him as we passed a small town. No sign. I continued, then the bike route was sign posted to the right. No sign of James. We have a rule - you never turn off without the other person. No James. I continued up the road to see of he had missed it. I flagged down a car to ask them to look out for him as I wasn't going any further. I went back to the turn off point. I cycled toward our final destination. I cried and sang Bonnie Tyler's 'I was lost in France...' Even though I wasn't in France perhaps because she's from Swansea it felt comforting. Eventually I found James who had stopped off in a church to use a toilet and so I'd gone past him. Like the prodigal son I was just delighted to see him again. With no phone, tent, money or passport - would not have been a great solo trip.

That night we were looked after by a Christian ex-prisoner living in a caravan next to our tent who printed T-shirts qnd grew his own peppers. He made us coffee in the morning and was incredibly hospitable.

We have just enjoyed our second rest day in St Louis. We were really lucky to stay with Rich and Julie. We arrived late after a 104 mile cycle into the city. Rich is a keen cyclist and an English teacher. Inspired by our question 'If you could teach the world one thing, what would it be?' He asked his students to answer the question. The 19 year old students gave the responses ranging from the profound to the practical. My favourite was 'you can't change people and if you try you force them away'. I am guessing this was the response of a love burnt teenage experience.

Rich and Julie made us feel hugely welcome with a whole basement to ourselves, washing, breakfast and a great dinner - Julie cooked clam linguine. They invited three friends round for an impromptu dinner party - Christine, Angela and Steve who were also great fun. Julie is one sixteenth Cherokee, Jewish and the rest somewhere between Polish and Italian - very American to have such diverse roots. Enthusiastic Democrats, Julie's mum was a life time campaigner and was stopped from riding the Freedom Rides because she was pregnant. Those were the buses that activists rode to make the point that black and white people could sit on the buses together and the world wouldn't end. This reminded me of a clip I had seen of a white guy being beaten up from being a Freedom rider.

Jim Zwerg was a white guy from an ordinary Christian white family he ended up going to a college in where he shared a room with a black guy and saw him suffer discrimination so he made the decision to apply to a black college in Nashville. He got very involved in the civil rights movement and started doing crazy things like going to the cinema with his black friends. The Freedom Rides were organised to challenge segregation on interstate buses. Federal law said segregation was illegal but state law said differently. Jim risked his life on many occasions to stand for a principle but on one occasion when he was being beaten by police and was saved by a black passer by. Zwerg recalls: "There was nothing particularly heroic in what I did. If you want to talk about heroism, consider the black man who probably saved my life. This man in overalls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said 'Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital. I don't know if he lived or died'*

So as we follow the Katy Trail on the route of Lewis and Clarke who navigated the Missouri river to find new lands and explore the Western territories I am mindful that in fact there is more depth to people in your own place. We may have different customs - the Americans find it weird when I say half past 8 not 830 but that is as different as many other cultural differences that develop over time. People are fascinating and the minute you think there is a simple way of understanding them - be it ethnicity, nationality, gender or age then you immediately limit your own understanding.

Like the tortoise, people take time to understand.

(The reference to the turtle by the way was because we have seen two on the road)

*http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

**http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/skindeep/zwergtranscript.html