The Amish have arrived

About a decade ago a small group of Amish arrived in neighboring Labette County. Last month, three families have moved to the area south and west of Independence. This would put them near the airport and the Little House on the Prairie Museum. The museum has an old post office and one room schoolhouse that had to be moved there when US 75 was being built in the early 70s. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Amish owned one of the neighboring farms?

Rearranging the rocks

We had a big storm last night.  It was big enough to bring out the county’s road crews out for the next week to scrape the dirt roads, including the ones I live on.  Some of them will get some gravel put on them.  Since we are still in rainy season, the repair is short term.  This is why people in the neighborhood call it “rearranging the rocks”.

Crappy Sunday

Sunday I drove the box truck to Sperry, or more specifically a store in the middle of nowhere. I guess they had weather up here Saturday morning because just a mile from the store there was a trampoline that landed against a fence a quarter mile from the nearest house.

The crew got the rest stop set up and went inside the store for breakfast. Even with the extra grease, the breakfast sammiches at Riegel’s are worth it. The weather was unusually cool and things were going great. The largest group of riders passed us going eastbound, but had not returned on their southbound leg when I got to learn about aerobic septic systems. It seems the rain filled the septic tanks and triggered the automatic sprayers and the spraying sewage right behind the portapotties and the Water Monster, and not far from the rest of the rest stop. The smell was about enough to gag a maggot.

Unlike the anaerobic septic systems most rural people are used to that just flood sewage in a puddle, aerobic septic systems spread it far and wide. Fortunately it only sprayed for about fifteen minutes and the odor died off quickly. Most of the time systems are set to go off on a timer in the middle of the night, but they can go off if the tanks are full.

Everything else went normally and I went back to Tulsa, fueled the truck and turned it in. I couldn’t take my normal route to the freeway and when I had to use another on ramp, I got on US 75 instead of US 169 and went through Bartlesville to get home. I went to bet quickly and got back to work that night. Fortunately it was only a two day work week before the weekend.

Rain Delay Saturday

One of the reasons Tulsa Tough is held when it is, is to race in a drier time of year. In the dozen years I have been driving the box truck that supplies rest stops on the Fondo courses, we have never had rain during the Fondo races.

This year we had a storm come through early Saturday morning. The cyclists are not wusses and are willing to ride in the rain. But the people running the event are not lunatics and will not let them ride with lightning in the area. As a result, there was a two hour delay in starting the Fondo races. Because most of the Gran Fondo riders were unlikely to finish their 100+ miles with two fewer hours, they had to run the Medio which is about 65 miles. Two of the rest stops were no longer needed, including one of the two I had on my truck. Since the trucks had been loaded before the rain delay, I still had two stops worth of supplies.

I pick up my truck and kinda get bum rushed out of there. On my way to Kellyville I got a call from someone who was at Slick, the stop that got canceled. I explain what happened and continue to Kellyville. I get to my stop in Kellyville early and the crew manning the rest stop is not due for a half an hour. Being an older person, the first thing I notice is there are no portapotties. I now realize in the rush to get me out of there, I do not have the contact information for the company paid to run the event. I do have contacts among the rest stop captains and get in touch of the company rep, who then tells me to take my extra Water Monster to Lake Sahoma. I type in the address and set out for Lake Sahoma. For whatever reason Google Maps thought it knew better than me where I was supposed to go and sent me to Lake Sahoma. The south end. The rest stop is on the other side of the lake. I can’t find a place to turn around a 14 foot box truck. Finally I meet another volunteer who made the same mistake I did, but in a smaller vehicle. He backs up and I follow him out. I get back to Kellyville, the crew is waiting for me and the portapotties have arrived. We unload and find out that the t-shirts for the volunteers can’t be found. Other than that the setting up went smoothly.

Fortunately the rest of the day runs almost normally. I take a slight detour on the way back, but by now I am familiar with the area and get turned around and back to the gas station to fuel up the truck. The card doesn’t work and the clerk can’t figure out what’s wrong either. I finally try another pump and things are good. I get back to the warehouse and get ready to deliver tomorrow’s stop.