French Kissing In The USA

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Yesterday's score in the good versus evil wind match was: Heaven 0 - 63 Hell. It didn't seem to matter which way we turned the wind was always bang on our noses. Just for good measure our luck finally ran out and we got a good old soaking for the final hour and a half.

We stayed in Chanute, KS whose claims to fame are:

1/ Octave Chanute claims to have been an aviation pioneer who provided the inspiration for the Wright brothers and



2/ If you load Google Earth from the USA and keep zooming in, you eventually find yourself looking at the intersection on Main Street Chanute where our hotel was located.  To celebrate this astonishing fact the town closed Main Street for 6 months to create the paved inlay shown above.  In the process the hotel almost went bust as nobody could get to it!!!

By now you may be wondering how this connects to the song de jour and title photo.  It doesn't.  I am experimenting with what I believe is called 'clickbait' in an effort to boost the readership figures.

Some bonus tracks:

Senior Service

For several days now we have been following roughly the same route as my 2009 trip.  Very little is ringing any bells with me but occasionally I see something that causes the poor old memory to fire up and start reconnecting neurons.  Such an episode occurred yesterday in Arse-end-of-nowhere, KS - a tiny town with a small cafe which was to be our only stop of the day.  The cafe was closed for bible study (I am not making this up) but we were invited in to the senior citizen centre next door for coffee and a chat.  Exactly the same thing happened 9 years ago and, although I can't be sure, I think the 3 old dears in there were sitting in the same chairs as last time.

Show Me The Way to Armadillo


Today we had a much better ride to Pittsburg, KS.  There were some decent stretches with only a side wind to contend with and the sun had a fetching (but rather humid) hat on.  There were even some gently rolling hills to contend with.  As some may remember from the Australian adventure earlier this year, we have a keen interest in roadkill and we can report that the roadkill of choice in Kansas is Armadillo.  Some, like this fella, just get bowled over but sometimes they are squashed completely flat and look like a big armour-plated tennis rackets.

Tomorrow a rest day.  Yippee.

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