Yates Center, KS to Wichita, KS
The wind has no mercy. It does not care that your bike weighs 60+ pounds and has saddlebags that act like parachutes. The wind punished us today for deciding to ride east to west against the prevailing winds.
Kansas has thousands of acres open pastureland with no trees to block even the slightest breeze. Today’s gift from Mother Nature was a 25-35 mph west wind in our face.
One gust grabbed Joe’s water bottle right out of his hand as he went for a drink and blew it off the road. It was blowing so hard at one point our top speed going DOWNHILL “pedaling” was less than 10 mph!!!! I did say downhill…. If we were to stop pedaling the bikes would have gone backwards.
The wind finally calmed down to a mere roar around 4PM. We were able to get the bikes back up to speed as we reached Wichita.
Joe’s brother, wife and son drove two hours to meet us for dinner. He is in the Army and stationed in Kansas. They also picked us up some needed supplies for us and brought them along. It was nice to see them and we were glad they came by.
The temperature drifted into the 90’s and our fluid consumption was up. One other little problem in Kansas is the lack of watering holes. Forget finding convenience stores on every corner. These farms are not a couple 50 acres each they measure these farms in square miles. At one point we went fluid critical. 90+ degree heat, no fluids and no towns in site. We decided to go off route in search of water. We found the only open store in a small town…. A pizza joint. We asked if they was a place we could by bottled water…nope not in this town! We ordered a round of sodas and then filled our water bottles there before we left.
Ken’s wife Debbie has put a package together and shipped it Express Mail to “General Delivery” in Ford Kansas for us to pick up. $60!!! Ouch… but we need it. This has the tires and tubes that are so badly needed. Also in this package is a new chain to replace the one we have installed a repair link on. If all goes well we should have the package Wednesday.
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2 comments:
Hey Kenny! Yes, Kansas. It's alot of nothing and huge and goes on forever! As you are coming out of it you start to see the Rockies on the horizon...Noah and I argued for 3 hours..."Those are just clouds Ma!" No Noah, it's the rockies!!! Hope you get out of Kansas soon!
We can't wait to leave Kansas. The Rockies do look like some big lumps in the road. Cool to hear from you guys!!!!!
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