About 50 miles into our ride, we passed by Lamar, Colorado. We've been looking for a theatre because we really want to watch Toy Story 3. However, when we finally found one in Lamar, we had to continue biking.
Considering the "Welcome to Utah: Life Elevated" and "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" signs, we were expecting some sort of greeting from Kansas. The first sign that we saw in Kansas that gave us a clue that we were in Kansas was a sign that said "Kansas Department of Transportation: Road Work Ahead: Give 'em A Brake. A little anticlimactic, but we'll take it.
About 12 miles past the Kansas border, we arrived at Syracuse, KS. The first thing I noticed was the Hamilton County Fair and Barbecue sign.
We had to check out the fair! We figure that if you're biking across the country, you might as well check out the local events to get a taste of the area. Alex and Arturo had some fantastic BBQ with funnel cake.
In Syracuse, the pastor of the First Covenant Church (who is a graduate of Dartmouth, so he and Loreen had a bonding moment talking about New Hampshire) allowed us to take showers at his home. Then, he opened up a school that he owns for us to spend the night.
That night, Kansas was exceptionally hot and very muggy, so we slept on the floor of an air-conditioned classroom.
We left Syracuse, and soon passed into the Central Time Zone. About 50 miles into our ride, we made it to Garden City. We got there around 11:30, which is when the Pizza Hut buffet started, so we took advantage of the timing and ate our weight in pizza. (Later, it was rather uncomfortable to bike on such a full stomach, so we're now questioning our decision to eat such a huge meal in the middle of a biking day.)
We stopped by at a bike shop and picked up some essentials and tuned up our bikes. Then we got a little side tracked in Wal-Mart (which tends to happen considering how much stuff Wal-Mart has), but we eventually left the Garden City and headed towards Dodge City.
The winds in Kansas are pretty strong (one lady in Syracuse, who really loved answering questions with stories, said "'The winds always blowing in all directions in Kansas. Sometimes it's in this direction; other times, it's in this. If it's not blowing, I'll tell you what; you're probably scared. In the winter time, the snow blows like this" - she moved her hands across horizontally.) We have to agree with her, the winds are pretty strong, but luckily they were blowing generally in our direction.
So the winds helped us get through the last 50 miles into Dodge City, Kansas. The Days Inn kindly donated a room to our cause. They were probably the most comfy beds that we've slept on during this trip. After a 100 mile day, we decided to go to bed early to rest up.
After getting up at 4 o'clock from Dodge City, we left and started heading towards Great Bend. On the way, there was a 3 mile stretch of wind farms.
At Kinsley, Kansas, we almost missed this sign, but luckily one of us spotted it. We're halfway home!
Kansas is chock-full of silos and grain-elevators. Apparently, the wheat harvest has just finished, and they're preparing to start the corn harvest soon. So as we're biking across Kansas, we see the completely cut down wheat fields and waiting-to-be-cut-down corn fields.
The winds were blowing in our direction, so we biked 87 miles in six hours (including breaks and stops, which is pretty fast considering that we're carrying all of our gear on our bikes). When we made it to Great Bend, we ate at a Chinese Buffet (we learned from our Pizza Hut experience to eat buffets after we're done biking), and the Days Inn donated a room to us.
It's only 3 o'clock in the afternoon and we're completely done for the day! Unfortunately, the movie theatre here isn't playing "Toy Story 3"so we'll have to wait for another time.
Hi Riders... Don't forget to share the great stories you've shared on FaceBook... They have been great!! I love reading about your journey.
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