Woke up at 3:30 this morning by kids playing basketball in the park…they played until about 11 last night. I didn’t know kids got up at 3 in the morning….they must love their basketball here — I guess at least they’re not sitting home playing video games 🙂 Didn’t think of it before but guess that’s one problem with sleeping in city parks—there are no quiet hours.
Hit the road at 5:30….nice cool morning. Love the elevation profile on my garmin this morning…flatline 🙂
Stopped and watched the sun come up this morning over wheat and corn fields. Stunning and peaceful!
6:20 am and made my turtle save for the day 🙂
Made it to Pittsburg, Kansas (State #5) this morning in 2hr 29min, 33.5 miles and that’s with stopping to take several photos and save a turtle. Very nice, flat ride this morning. Going to get hot though. Stopped at Harry’s Cafe on Broadway for breakfast—eggs, sausage, hash browns, pancakes, coffee, and orange juice. Great food, but slow service….seems that’s the only place in town to eat on Sunday morning and there were a lot of people there….it’s a big town and we won’t be seeing one of those again for a long time—nothing but corn and wheat where we’re headed for miles and miles…..
Left Pittsburg and had either a tailwind or side wind all day. The next water stop was in Gerard….the land was flat and I was flying. Unzipped my riding jersey and let the cool air flow — felt great. Never could do that in the mountains because air doesn’t flow well when you’re doing 2.5 mph up the east side of a mountain where there is no wind and you’re trying to maintain enough momentum to not fall off your bike, but out here when you’re doing 17-20 mph with a 15-20 mph wind out of the south, south-west it feels great. When I entered the city limits of Gerard the speed limit was 20—I had to check to make sure i wasn’t breaking it 🙂 Hit Girard at 10:30 with 48 miles down.
The terrain today has been totally different—it’s like someone flipped a switch and the mountains and hills are gone—nothing but road, corn fields, wheat fields, sun, sky, flat land and wind.
Stopped in Walnut at about 12:45 with 67 miles down. Just a little market…only thing for miles in either direction—having a cold V8, a watermelon drink, and a bologna and cheese sandwich.
Riding today has been fun—this is my kind of terrain. When we are heading West, which is about 80% of the time today, there is a moderate wind blowing out of the southwest, so is hitting me at about a 45 degree angle in the face and feels great—almost like air conditioning offsetting the heat of the sun….it does slow me down quite a bit, but that’s ok….the cooling effect is more than worth it.
The other 20% of the time when we are traveling north, we are just flying across the flat land with the tail wind. This is great bike riding territory—I’ve seen maybe a couple dozen cars all morning and when they pass they move over completely in the other lane—maybe because they can see for a couple miles up the road 🙂
The only excitement today was when Rob beat a train across the tracks at a crossing. He put a nickel on the tracks, but then couldn’t find it after the train passed—don’t think he wanted to carry that nickel anyway….too heavy 🙂 Its amazing after doing hundreds of miles on a bike what you’ll get rid of to save weight. Rob has been refusing to accept receipts at stores because he doesn’t want to carry the extra weight 🙂
We arrived at Chanute early this afternoon and had a choice of another city park tonight or a motel….I choose The Knights Inn Motel….need some AC and a good night’s rest. Checked in and Rob went off in search of beer and to swim in the pool—I went to bed and took a three hour nap. Got up around 7pm went down the road to a BBQ place and had their super large dinner special of pulled pork, turkey, beans, Mac and cheese, and about 5 large glasses of Diet Pepsi—because they didn’t have Coke. Then ordered another large pulled pork sandwich 🙂 By the way, Rob wasn’t happy he couldn’t find beer—no selling of alcohol around here on Sundays 🙂
I have a feeling future updates will be mostly pictures and little writing—it’s just going to be days of flat, windy, sunny, corn and wheat fields and road. So, unless we run into a tornado or something, probably not going to be much to report except for mileage and location 🙂
8:20 pm….going to bed feeling strong!
