July 2 – July 7

Riding in the plains has been a huge change from the Rocky Mountains.  The flat terrain makes riding easier, and we are able to cover more ground in less time.  The temperatures have gone up significantly which we both enjoy.  No more waking up to freezing temperatures!  We have made our way from Pueblo, Colorado to Great Bend Kansas in the last week or so.  In Ordway, the first stop after Pueblo, we stayed in a trailer outside a woman’s house (Jillian) with a few other bikers.  We got to help Jillian move her goats from one field to another for the night. It wasn’t anything serious but for city folk it was hardcore farming stuff.  From Ordway we rode to Eads and got a super cheap hotel for the night.  We made big plans to wake up the next morning really early and beat the heat and the winds.  The plan went perfectly at first.  We were on the road by 3am and cruising down the dark highway.  About 20 miles later we realized that the sun was rising to our left instead of directly in front of us as it should when you are traveling east.  We soon found out that we were on the wrong road and we had been riding south for the last couple hours.  Long story short it was 3am, dark, and we missed the turn.  It could happen to anyone.  We were disappointed to say the least but we turned around and peddled 20 miles back to where we started by 8am.  We went back to our hotel and told them we locked our key in the room, got another key, got back into our rooms and took a three hour nap.  At 11am the front desk told us we had to leave so we got back on the bikes and rode over 60 miles to Tribune with just enough time to find a place to pitch our tents and go to sleep.  We camped in the 4-H barn with a couple other bikers.  That was how we spent the 4th of July.  The next day we road about 75 miles to Dighton and slept in the city park.  Thats one of the new perks to riding through this part of the country.  All the small towns have city parks that we can camp in for free.  We have not paid to sleep or shower since Eads when we spoiled ourselves with a hotel.  From Dighton we made our way to La Crosse and camped at the city park.  It stormed overnight and it continued to rain the rest of the day as we cycled to Great Bend, our current location.  Tonight we are sleeping behind a car wash with Jon, another cross country rider we met a few days ago.  The car wash isn’t much of a campsite but its free and we got to set up in an old garage.  The bathroom takes First Place in the race for the smelliest place we are ever going to shower.  The weather report for the next couple days is rain, but we hope to be out of Kansas by the end of the week.

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