Kansas and the prevailing south wind

Day 18  -  Eads, Co to Scott City, KS  - 104 Miles

Like rebels, we crossed the border today...the Colorado/Kansas border that is.  That's right, this required evading a great deal of nickel-sized flies, rolling past an invisible line, and looking out to make sure the not-as-excited truckers didn't hit us.  Excitement ensued.  At any rate, this was an important ride for us because it is now our second longest and we crossed into another state (this will become less of a deal once we get into the smaller states, but for right now, because it takes a solid week to cross a state, it is always something to look forward to).  

Our morning began with rain in good old Eads, CO.  Or at least we thought it was rain.  The courthouse lawn (which apparently, "many cyclists sleep on," said some nearby kid) was the greenest thing we had seen since the trees in the Rockie mountains, so already we were suspicious.  At about 6:30 am, on the dot, the rain came down.  But oddly enough, it was hitting  our tent from the side.  Weird, right?  I peered through a tiny hole at the top of our tent and could see plenty of sunlight.  "hmm, that's weird," I thought to myself, "usually rain comes streaming down from clouds."  Then, suddenly, the rain ceased and a man walked by chuckling to himself.  This I had to investigate.  I got up and looked outside only to find that there were definitely no clouds, definitely no glistening streets, and definitely nothing other than our area wet because of a sprinkler!  I must say, we sort of expected this to happen and we were too tired to look more thoroughly for sprinkler heads the night before, so we kind of deserved it, I guess.  But like good stealth campers we had a tarp covering our bikes and a tarp covering our tent so nothing important got wet. 

The Eads campsite.  Tent in the background, tarps and bikes, and les on the computer.

We set out, after a decent breakfast and stock up at the local convenience store.  It would be a long, flat, Colorado to Kansas ride, but again, it would be exciting to cross into a new part of the country we've never seen.

I know, my excitement for life just gives away how stupendous this ride was...

After a little consoling Les was able to cope with the idea of leaving beautiful, mountainous Colorado.  But really, he just ate a fly and the camera caught him off guard...just kidding!

I am being a little more overly exuberant than is needed, just to set the tone for the rest of the ride through the state.

Here is a tip for all you who travel through Kansas and are getting hot and sweaty and tired: in most big cities there can be found a public pool.  It was 40 miles to the border and then another 15 into Tribune, KS where, supposedly, we'd find a pool to cool off in.  We started talking about the Sandlot and how we would be swimming around in the pool and some daring young kid would yell out, "I can't take this anymore!"  He'd then quickly make his way to the diving board and plunge to his "death," at which point the lifeguard-beauty of Tribune city would dive and save the little boys "life." And then the music would cut to "THIS MAGIC MOMENT..." and you all know the story from there.  

Unfortunately, this didn't happen, but we did get to swim around and cool off for a bit, so that was nice.

Does anyone else think this looks like a giant golf tee?

Oh yeah!

This was quite the sight to see.

And come on, this is so a dinosaur in the sky...don't even try to deny it!

We cruised into Scott City, KS and found a place to buy groceries.  Also, if you're ever traveling through Kansas and don't have/want to spend the cash on a motel or something, it is totally legal to camp in any park, so that is exactly what we did.  Also, apparently July 1st is the new July 4th because as we sat in the park making dinner, talking, reading, etc., fireworks/firecrackers were going off like...well, fireworks, and without ceasing.  They went on for at least three hours, no joke.  But we finally made it to bed...even with the Mountain time to Central time zone hour loss.

 

A leisurely cruise into town.