chronology begins below

continuing my important research

Wednesday. Started out before 7:00am to try to beat the heat. It had to be 90 by 9:00am on a day that was supposed to be 68 miles. Rest day tomorrow makes the ride a lot easier know after 8 days and 429 miles we’ll have a day off and no more hills for awhile. About half way into the ride with the flattening terrain obvious we’re having lunch in golden city when informed that the road ahead was closed due to the flooding from the heavy rains two days ago. Please forgive me for over doing the pictures in golden city. I couldn’t help myself. Our detour added almost 10 miles to the ride as the temp reached mid 90’s with heat index over 100. Learned a bit about heat and wind as we road in all four directions as we navigated around the detour. Riding directly into the wind is the coolest but also the hardest to make progress. Riding with a tail wind you go real fast with “no chain” but it’s very hot. The most comfortable is cross wind. The wind is refreshing without unduly impeding forward momentum. I rode straight to the super 8 in pittsburg, cranked the a/c and drank about 2 gallons of water. It’s still morning and I’ve already been to the post office and completed a laundry run. I had lost track of father’s day but was happily reminded with all the stuff in the mail. Cards from donna,Benjamin, david, Jessica, josh, Emily, alix, ami, and andy. Cookies and cake that are delicious probably from caribou. Beth has a great book for me but I asked her to hold onto it as I’m really over weight. Starting tomorrow morning we ride 7 days in a row and end up just short of the Colorado border. We will ride aprox. 400 miles almost all of it on one road rising about 2300 feet so it’ll be pretty gradual. The wind rather than the hills will determine level of difficulty. Weather forecast shows a chance of rain tomorrow and then sunny and hot for the next seven days. I think we will welcome the high country out there in front of us in about 10 days. time to catch some u.s open. Later.






Tuesday. We woke up this morning to ominous black clouds. By the time breakfast was finished a violent electrical storm was upon us carrying very high winds. We intelligently sat t the rain dly hoping our ride would not get ppd. Someone got the brilliant idea to go hunting for a coffee shop in town. Believe it or not Freda’s diner was the happening breakfast spot in town so by 8:00am we had two breakfasts and zero miles. By 9:30am the storm let up to a light rain with no thunder and lightning so we geared up and got on the road. It was pretty chilly so I put on head to toe water proof stuff. It worked great except once you’re warmed up after the first few hills it gets very hot. Luckily after 15 miles the rain stopped and the gear came off. Because of the late start I didn’t get to camp in ash grove, mo. until almost 3:00pm. Of course that included time for a great lunch at the local diner. After extensive personal research I’ve concluded that almost every little town has a diner just like the beloved sandy hook diner. They all have their regulars who all know each other and are called “honey” or “dear” by the waitress… and it is always a waitress. There must be something about males need not apply. There’s not even any ordering, because everyone has the same thing every day and the waitress always gets it right. While we’re staying at the ash grove town park, we’re actually in a house adjacent to the part. Mr Varn left his house to the town and it was available for us to use. No beds, but lots of floor space, bathrooms, and a kitchen. The big bonus is air conditioning. Big day tomorrow!!!!!

pointing out the obvious re: kansas sign

in honor of tom and ralph. try to read the bumper sticker of van with woman

c
crew at the landry


flat and straight as far as the eye can see

andy's haircut

high water at campgrounds

geared up biker joe' head to toe goretex

waiting out the rain at freda's