Chanute KS to Pittsburg KS 59 miles.

The was really a short day.  Dave and Pete arrived in Pittsburg about 1:00PM.  Pitt is a rather large town with a huge city park with a large pool.  The parks people gave us bikers permission to camp there.  The do not allow other campers.  The pool and accompanying shower were available to us - free - too.

We were a day late.  Immanuel Lutheran Church has a permanent welcome to all bikers on their outside sign. It is located on a lightly traveled rural road in the middle of no where. Every Thursday they feed lunch to all comers including bikers. Our fellow travelers Rusty and Ray got in on it.  (see www.rustymccain.com).  We were a day late.  In the book What's So Amazing About Grace Yancy talks about churches which exhibit grace beyond maintaining their our congregation.  Immanuel's sign said in effect the door to the fellowship hall is open.  Help yourself.  Use it to sleep in if you need to. We checked, and sure enough the place was wide open.  That was a "dripping of Grace" for us today
.

Dave was on a mission today.  He wanted to, and did, drive to Joplin to make contact with relief agencies with whom the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee might be partners.  He agreed to write a blog and post pictures soon about his visit there.  Pete went with him. 

8000 homes were destroyed in Joplin

One of the places Dave contacted in Joplin.

I stayed and played golf at a course in this big park.

This is our last night in KS.  We really enjoyed the camping experiences in the city parks with pools.  We now will see what MO brings.

Phil

El Dorado KS to Chanute KS 92 miles

Wow.  I am glad we were in a motel 'cause it was raining quite steadily when we poked or head out at 5:00 AM.  By the time Pete and I headed out at 6:00 it had stopped but there were puddles on the road.  We received a few hard, dirty showers, from passing semis.  Fortunately US 54 in this part of Kansas doesn't have much truck traffic. The morning was overcast with temps in the  mid 70s.  I rode the first 55 miles and Dave rode the rest in the 90 degree afternoon sun. Pete of course rode the whole way and he just reported that he is feeling great and "I don't hurt anywhere."   We got here, Chanute, and found the camp ground, but there are no tent sites and not even a rest room much less a shower. So Knights Inn is our bedroom for the night.

Green.  This part of the state has received a lot of water.  All the pasture lands are lush, and the cows must be be in their glory.  We had many observers today.  Whole herds of cows watched us on as we went by.  I called them Pete's fan club.  Pete observed that this part of KS looks a lot like rural MI and WI.  The humidity is the same too.

Scott Winters of GR radio station, WJRW, 1340 AM had read about us in the Press and wanted to talked to one of us.  Dave called him and was on the radio for about 15 minutes.

Later

Phil

7/6/11 A rest day in El Dorado & Wichita KS.

Two nights in a Best Western is a relief.  We even slept in until 7:30.  Wichita is only 25 miles away, and we arrived there about 10:15..  The Garman led us to a bike shop. The folks there got right right on Pete's broken spoke and we were out of there in 45 minutes. So now what?  There was the Mid-America All-Indian Center just a mile away.  SO we visited and were exposed to some Native American history and culture.  We also heard about the Museum of World Treasures.  The exhibits were an eclectic mix of time periods and cultures, from pre-history to the space age.  I wish I could have spent more time there.

The Coleman company is headquartered in Wichita.  Their outlet store has more Coleman products than I knew they made.  The have a museum of older items, some of which we have in our basement.
Back to El Dorado, dinner of PB&J and watermelon.  Then off to the banana-split store - Phil & Dave split one.

Phil

Buhler KS to El Dorado KS 64 miles.

The day started off in fog.

Foggy morning leaving Buhler KS

The first 25 miles to Newton went like a dream.  Micky D was our second breakfast stop there.

This heat is getting old.  The mayor of Larned KS told us that this is the third hottest summer since the late 1800's.  They had an unprecedented number of over 100 degree days this year already. 

The exhaustion has caught up and we traveled to El Dorado KS (not on our route) for a day of R&R in an air conditioned motel. (Except that as I am writing this the air conditioner went out.  Time to move to a different room.)  Dave & Pete arrived in town at 12:15 after peddling 64 miles. It's already 100 degrees.  Pete & Dave are off doing laundry. Pete broke a spoke on the way here.  There are no bike shops in this city of 30,000 people, so tomorrow we will be traveling 25 miles (by car) to a bike shop in Wichita.  So much for an R&R day.

Phil

Fourth of July. Larned KS to Buhler KS 78 miles.

Camp at Buhler, KS

Campsite at Buhler City Park/Pool

More of the same except that the riders reported they saw more wild life including turtles and turkeys.  And trees!  We are guessing that the farms in this area are family owned, and the ones we saw before are factory ones. Therefore the tree wind brakes planted during the dust bowel days are still intact.  You have heard that they roll up the sidewalks in small towns on certain days.  It's true.  Buhler KS did that on the fourth of July.  There was not a single store open.  The city park and pool however was alive with folk including us. The shower was hot and the pool cool.  Just what we need on a 102 degree day. However by the time we cooked and setup our tent were ready for bed we could have used another dip in the pool.

A local guy came and chatted with us for awhile.  He mentioned that it's so dry that they do not get any dew, so Dave and I decide to not use our rain flys in order to get more air flow.  Wrong.  We were both musty, "dampish" as Dave called, it in the morning.  I doubt I will try that again this trip.

We usually hit the sack about 9:00.  There was no sleeping before 12:30 this night because of the fire works in the neighborhoods around us.

Phil

Pete taught chemistry at South Christian High.

Scott City to Ness City 55 Miles. Ness City KS to Larned KS 64 Miles

7/2/11
This ride took a bit longer because of -- you guessed it -- wind.  Pete and I rode an average of 11 miles per hour because of it and the heat.  You cannot imagine, at least  I never imagined, what a head wind does to your enthusiasm for being out in it. That and heat saps your strength and you are forward to the next city swimming pool.  I don't know if this is going to hold out, but all the Kansas cities we visited so far have city parks with swimming pools with showers and camping is allowed in them. A thunderstorm roared trough at Ness City.  I neglected to stake down my rain fly and all the water ran down from the top to under my tent and I woke up floating in a puddle.

Campsite in Ness City

How much work would it be to change a flat?

Dave carried all our gear to the lower level. What a guy!

Rusty (or Ray) took this picture of KS route 96.

I mentioned in prior posts that we are on the same route and Rusty and Ray.  Rusty is keeping a blog too.  He has a way with descriptions that are beyond me. They mention us every once in a while. So if you want a different description of the route and their experience check in at www.rustymccain.com.

Rusty McCain and Ray Ashworth

7/3/11

Kansas. All horizon and no mountains.

Larned City KS was the next one on our list of KS city to visit.  Dave and Pete reported that it those 64 miles were hard - wind in their faces and heat (100 today).  BUT.  The city pool and showers were fantastic. The grass is green and the ground is level.  The storm clouds gathering in the west are not going to dump any rain under my tent tonight. I think I learned.  I wish I could post some captivating pictures, but we haven't seen any captivating sights.  Field after field, after field, after field, grain elevator, after grain elevator on each horizon as far as the eye can see. You can see the next elevator 10 miles away - I clocked it.  Oh, and oil wells.  There are a lot of little ones all along the way. There are caravans of contract harvesters on the road - apparently from Texas.  They are hauling very large John Deer machines which take up the whole lane when they pass. We were warned by riders going west that KS might just be the hardest state to ride because of the sameness.  The road, KC 96, is straight, straight, straight. When the next town comes into view it looks like an oasis because of all the trees.  Ride through, no more trees.

Fort Larned National Historic Site.

Larned KS City Park/Pool.  Fountain in background.

We heard that the writeup about trip is in the GR Press today.  I have to get to it on MLIVE.com yet.

Happy Forth of July

Phil

Eads CO to Scott City KS. 105 Miles

You bikers might know how this goes.  The ride today was scheduled to end at Tribune KS.  Dave and Pete got there about 10:45 AM after 56 miles.  (They left Eads about 6:15 AM.) The looked at each other and said "It's too early to stop.  Let's go to Leoti -  another 22 miles."  Off they went.  They got there and called Phil to say they were going to Scott City - another 25 miles. Pete says his total for the day as 105 miles. The temp hit 100 degrees. We are staying in an athletic club.  We slept on the flood on our air mattresses.  The place is air conditioned, has showers, and a pool.  It has a great deck to fix our meal and share it with two other retirees, Al Nordstrom and Keith Wilson,  who are doing their bucket list ride.

Sharing dinner with Al & Keith at the Athletic Club.  Scott City

Kansas awaites.

Scott City Athletic Club. Deck and Pool

Our kitchen/dining room. Scott City

I am again impressed with scenery.  Farms.  There is cultivated land stretching to the horizon front, back, right, and left.  There are no trees. It's just fields. The John Deer harvesters are huge.  Grain trucks going to the elevators are everywhere.  Grain elevators are the tallest things around and they seem to be built every 1/2 mile.

The  ride tomorrow is scheduled to cover 51 miles.  But you know how that goes.

Phil