So Kansas has not gone has expected to say the least. We haven't had any tail winds to accomplish a century day and we didn't make up any lost time. Although, it definitely has not been boring, as we anticipated it to be. A trip to the ER always provides some excitement and we have met a lot of great people and taken some interesting roads. Not to mention, we made it to TWO county fairs.
After Tawnia dropped us off in Mcpherson, the three of us spent hours lying around on benches in their parks then Nick showed up later on bike. We planned on just camping in the city park because, well, it didn't say you couldn't. However, once Natalee's boyfriend, Brian, found out where they were, a few phone calls were made and the parents of his friend Kate had offered to let us stay with them. Natalee has met Kate a few times but never her parents so that was extremely kind of them to take in potentially smelly and crazy strangers. Ruth and John met us at Mcpherson's awesome pool that we had to check out, and lead us to their home. They were such excellent hosts! They pretty much doctored Natalee's ankle, which was giving major problems at the time, back to health by forcing her to kick back and relax while keeping ice on it. We chatted with them for hours and they informed us of a new game called Yolo Polo. Once again, if you have to ask you can't afford it. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay with them. Even though we did not know them directly, it is nice to have any type of a connection while we are so transient out here traveling.
We left their house feeling much more solid as we hopped on the bikes again, but we were still going to take it easy with a medium length day to Marion Lake in which Israel hulked up to pull Natalee's trailer. We definitely didn't expect to be camping on a lot of pretty lakes in Kansas but this one was gorgeous. It was also sadly where Nick parted ways from the vagabonds but, we expect to run into him someday since we can't seem to stay away from each other for very long. We woke up to a beautiful sunrise reflecting a burning color off of the water. Time to shoot for another day. Today was different though, and yet the same. Our beloved and so terribly missed headwinds were back and stronger than ever. And it was HOT. We powered through the winds for several hours, which is not too easy to do when someone has a gimp leg, and finally made it 30 miles to Strong City. We really hoped to make it another 25 to Emporia but there was no telling how long it would take.
Once again the timing couldn't have been more perfect and we met Paul who happened to be driving a big cargo truck for John Deere back to his store in Emporia and just happened to have grown up in the cycling community. He felt for us riding into the winds and didn't mind to help us get to Emporia. When he asked where to drop us off and we clumsily stumbled over our words since we had yet to even look into where we could possibly sleep, he told us that he would take us to his house to get cleaned up and to stay for the night. One of our hardest days quickly turned into one of our best experiences. Paul and his wife Sara had twins, Julia and Pierre. They were an incredible family so full of love. It was so apparent how much love they had for each other, God and even random strangers like us. We loved playing with the twins while Paul fixed us a wonderful meal. Then we met another amazing person. His friend Sal came over for dinner. Sal was another positive and loving person that anyone would be grateful to have a conversation with. He even took us all to breakfast the next morning. Sara was an excellent host for us once we returned, bellies full of pancakes. She even let us use her van to go to the bike shop and the grocery store. Letting someone drive your car who has barely even been inside a car in 2 months..now that is trust! We had such a great time with them that we even stayed for lunch. They gave us an experience and taught us lessons that we will never forget. We hope you guys are starting to realize that the bike has not been what this trip is all about.
After we left Emporia, the real adventuring began. We have started doing a little off-roading in Kansas. We took The Flint Hills Nature Trail for a good part of the day. The first part of the trail was great with very small gravel on mostly dirt, then it got pretty rough with big chunky rock so we decided to abandon the path. It was an adventure non the less and it is always nice to get off of main roads with cars zooming by. We camped on Pomona Lake, which was also beautiful and had a super clean bathhouse. It would be a place worth spending a couple of nights for a camping trip.
We set off this next morning with the intentions of leaving Kansas, but better plans came about. We met Alicia and John a few weeks ago back in Lander, Wyoming. They live in a suburb of Kansas City and when they found out what we were doing they said that we had to come and visit them. So once in Ottawa we made the decision to just go for it. In order to go the shortest route we could possible find, our i phone maps took us some interesting ways. Most of our turns were less than 2 miles apart so it kept us on our toes. It followed quite a few dirt roads and paths that weren't really roads at all. Besides being lead through the woods to a bridge that was not fit for crossing, we were impressed with the route and did eventually end up at John and Alicia's house in Olathe.
We could not believe that we were actually seeing each other again after randomly meeting in Wyoming. We ate dinner and talked until we were all yawning too much to finish a sentence. Today the plan is to explore Kansas City, which will be quite different from the small towns of Kansas that we have been going through. We are keeping things interesting so stay tuned for what is to come!
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