Flat Roads in Kansas

We are in Chanute, Kansas--city motto, "The gutter is our bike lane." It has almost 10,000 people, so it's a huge city. We'll be staying in the Santa Fe Safari Park tonight. It's not actually a safari park, unfortunately. The road it's on is Santa Fe Rd., and a couple here went to Africa on safari and made a museum. The museum is next to the library, but it's closed.

You have never known two people so happy to be in Kansas. We crossed the border this morning. The roads are less busy than they were in Missouri, and they're much flatter. We finished the hills with 11 miles left to go yesterday, and we haven't been in our granny gear since.

After we posted in Houston we continued through rolling hills to Hartville. The wind was against us and it got very hot. At one point Nick had to stop to lie down. He found a shady spot but didn't see the poison ivy. No reaction, though. We stopped in a store in Ben Davis and learned that there was another westbound couple hoping to camp in Hartville. We'd first heard about this couple in front of us in Hindman, KY--our first day in Kentucky. The chance of catching and meeting them motivated us through the last 20 hot miles. They were a nice couple from Marin, CA. She was having hip problems, so they'd slowed down a bit. We ate dinner with them and set up our tent near theirs on the courthouse lawn. They're carrying a cast iron skillet.

The next day we pushed to get out of the Ozarks and the hills of Missouri. The day started overcast, and we didn't see our shadows all day. It was nice to be cool, but in the late afternoon we had some rain showers and thunderstorms nearby. We had to stop to make sure they weren't headed our way. We ended the day with 12 flat miles to Golden City, MO, just 40 miles from Kansas. We slept in the city park there. At around 9:50 pm, just as we were headed to bed, some local kids showed up to play basketball in the same pavilion we'd set up our tent. They had very dirty mouths and were terrible shots. They left us alone and left about a half hour later.

This morning we had a big breakfast with more free pie in Golden City, then rode our way into Kansas. The riding will be very different in Kansas. Usually, we ride for about 20 miles then take a break and eat a peanut butter and honey sandwich. We've been doing that for weeks in the mountains. You can just imagine how many sandwiches that adds up to. But after our breakfast, we rode 50 miles before stopping. It was amazing. We met 3 more eastbounders as well. They'd all started solo, but met up in Kansas and are pushing each other to finish. One of them left Astoria, OR just 2 weeks before we started our trip. That made us feel like we're making some progress. We stopped riding here in Chanute, as we said above. After we post this, we'll buy groceries for dinner and breakfast, then head for the park.

Overall, we're still doing well. We're excited to be out of the hills for a bit. Missouri sounds like misery if you say it wrong, but we slowed down through it and had a good time. There were so many dead armadillos. We'd never really seen one before, but the roads in Missouri were nearly paved with them. We'll see what Kansas brings.

Tomorrow we're either stopping in Cassody or doing a very long day if the wind is right and it's not too hot.

The numbers:

HZNPBFOONECCBBVKZA--The roads we rode in Missouri. At one point we went from Z to A, which sounds thorough, but backwards.
1600--miles ridden.
42--eastbound bikers we've met to date.
8--westbounders we've passed.
431--Kristin's Yahtzee high score. Nick's highest is 223.
2--country song titles inspired by the Ozarks: "I Can Go Anywhere (In My Granny Gear)" and "My Shirt Is My Pillow (And You Can Share It With Me)"
12.7--our average speed today. Nearly 2 miles per hour faster than any day yet. We love Kansas (so far)!