Day 49: Tuesday, May 23

It was hard to leave the comfort of Holli's air conditioned home this morning. We didn't get started until after 10:30. Less than six miles later, we crossed the border into Missouri.
All of a sudden there is no more shoulder as the white line on the road disappeared when we entered Missouri. The hills are continuing to increase as we approach the Ozarks.

The roads here in Missouri are identified by numbers instead of letters, and I saw one sign today with my brother Mikael's initials on it. It is amazing what a shower, a good night's sleep in a real bed, clean clothes, and a home cooked meal can do for one's morale. It is almost as good as a day off! Despite the late start this morning, we rode over 70 miles and tonight we are camped in the city park in Ash Grove. It is a nice park and we have access to the showers in the pool locker rooms. I am getting spoiled... this is now two nights in a row where I have been able to take a shower! One of the bridges on the route just outside of Ash Grove was closed. Thankfully we were able to talk to some of the locals and find a way around without taking the official detour which would have led us several miles out of the way. Tomorrow we will meet my Grandparents for lunch in Fairgrove.

Day 48: Monday, May 22

Today was a pretty uneventful day. We finished the Eighth Section of maps as we rode from just outside Toronto to Holli's place here in Pittsburg. We are very grateful to be able to sleep in a real bed, take a shower, do laundry, and eat a home cooked meal! It was nice to meet Holli's mom and grandparents. Pittsburg is right on the border between Kansas and Missouri. My grandparents live in Missouri, and I am hoping to be able to meet them at some point.

Day 47: Sunday, May 21

Evidently during our night ride two days ago, we crossed that invisible barrier between the dry West and the humid Midwest. It is now ridiculously humid! Although, I suspect this is how it is going to be for the rest of the trip. The landscape is starting to roll again as we approach the Ozarks.

We met an enthusiastic biker in Cassoday who stopped to talk to us about our trip. He was about to go mountain biking. That is an interesting concept... mountain biking in Kansas. We met our second group of west-bound cyclists later in the afternoon. There were two girls from Holland and a gentleman from England who were biking the TransAm and a younger guy riding from New York to Los Angeles. He told me about a bike seat called Brooks that I am going to need to look into. It is an old-school leather seat that is supposedly unbelievably comfortable. The wind is supposed to blow from West to East, but we faced head winds again today. Despite the wind, we were able to ride more than 100 miles, so now we are definitely ahead of schedule. We made it to Cross Timbers State Park where there are four different camping areas. We saw the turn off for the first camp site, but we decided to ride to the second. Once we got everything set up, we learned from the only other campers here that the first camp site we passed is the only one with showers! One of the girls I used to work with at the Grand Canyon is from Kansas. Holli told us to look her up since the trail goes right through her home town of Pittsburg. We are hoping to be able to make it to her house tomorrow.

Day 46: Saturday, May 20

We were riding into a head wind most of the day today. We stopped to take a break in Newton, and decided to spend the night tonight even though we have only gone 57 miles. It is interesting to think that yesterday we spent more time in Larned during the middle of the day than we did last night in our tents in Nickerson. We are hoping to catch up on some of the sleep that we missed. There was a graduation ceremony here in the city park, but things are starting to calm down now.

Day 45: Friday, May 19

This morning we rode through Alexander which marked the completion of the Seventh Section. Just before Fort Larned National Historic Site, we met our first west-bound TransAm riders! There were two girls who started in Yorktown and were heading to San Fransisco who met up with a guy along the way who was heading to Astoria. We rode almost 70 miles to the town of Larned where we stopped for lunch. One of the things we wanted to attempt on this trip was a night ride. When we stepped from the air-conditioned restaurant back into the heat, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the library and trying to take a nap in the park. By 6:00 that evening, the temperature was still in the 90s. We left Larned a little after 7:30. Just after the sun set, I got my first flat tire. It was an interesting experience attempting to fix it in the dark. It didn't take very long for the novelty of riding at night to wear off. We arrived in Nickerson at about 12:40 in the morning and set up camp at the city park. Unfortunately, I erased today's stats from my computer while working on my flat tire, but Shayne's computer indicated that we rode close to 130 miles total.

Day 44: Thursday, May 18

Today we rode from Tribune to Ness City. Along the way we crossed into the Central Time Zone. While there isn't much scenery in Kansas, this state has the best roads so far. Plus there isn't very much traffic. Since there isn't much to look at, I have been using the mile markers to check the accuracy of my computer, and it looks like I am about 3/100th of a mile off. About sixteen miles outside of Ness City, I broke a spoke. This is the first time that anything has gone wrong with my bike. Thankfully, there was a rest area with trees so we were able to repair it in the shade.


Tonight we are camped at the city park here in Ness City. There was a drain in the floor of the bathroom here at the park, so I took a quasi-shower using my water bottle. It felt divine as this is the first "shower" I have had since Sunday in Breckenridge.

Day 43: Wednesday, May 17

First of all, I need to send a shout out to Mikael... Happy Birthday! It is very obvious that we are now in the plains as the roads here are all flat and mostly straight. A grain silo will appear on the horizon of the next town, but it is sometimes more than 20 miles away. And we can see that same silo for the next hour or more as we ride towards that town. It's just something different that we haven't experienced before.

We met a lady when we stopped to eat a snack in Arlington this morning. She was very helpful and gave us a map put together by city and county officials in eastern Colorado that listed the services available in the towns ahead. There has been a severe drought in this area of the country, and several of the cities are almost modern ghost towns. We crossed into Kansas in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, there wasn't a big "Welcome to Kansas" sign there to greet us. Tonight we are camped at the city park in Tribune. Today we set a new distance record of 114 miles.