Day 40, Ash Grove, Missouri to Pottsburg, Kansas

These are how they water the crops. Looks kind of high tech. To get um to align just right and be in sync, I'm assuming the whole thing is computerized.

A nice little water fall if you can call it that. We are now in flatter terrain, so the land scape has change quite a bit.

These are the spigots around here. It took me a while to figure them out, but if there isn't a lock on it, all you gotta do, is pull the handle all the way up.

This was a neat little surprise. We pulled into this city park in Everton, a small town of about 300, to use the restrooms. Just as we crossed the train track about 40 yards back, a coal train fully loaded came by. Sorry, no picture.

All the farms folks have their own little creative way of displaying mail boxes. i liked this one the best.

We came across a little creek with turtles playing around in it. I got off my bike to take pictures of them, but as soon as they seem me coming, they all took off. I had to wait about 10 minutes just to get this one shot.

Welcome to Kansas, I was never so happy to leave a place than I did today. Missouri sucked as far as hill go.

They were harvesting wheat today. They only cut off the tops. I guess they plow the rest under to use as fertilizer or something.

We stopped at a church to look for water. We didn't find any, but we found this. A bee hive in the wall.

One of if not the last hill in Missouri. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but it was more than a thousand we climbed in Missouri alone.

This is Bret, an east bounder from Washington going to Virginia we met at the city park camp ground in Ash Grove. Real nice guy, would like to come to Molokai some day to visit.

Britney and George. Two Friends starting from Pueblo, Colorado going to Virginia. Friends of theirs told them they gotta do this, so they did.


Day 40, Ash Grove, Missouri to Pittsburg, Kansas. “Welcome To Kansas. 73.48 miles. (1701 miles total).

Boy what a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was on the verge of giving up. Totally depleted of any desire to continue. The heat had got to me in a way that I‘ve never experienced before. I was dehydrated, and I had a hard time making it any further. If it wasn’t for the promise of flatter terrain just ahead, I would have probably taken another rest day, or maybe even pay somebody to drive me to Kansas.
Today however, is another story. I felt well rested, and I knew that I had another chance at redeeming myself. We climbed our last Missouri hill today, actually there were three of them, but since we knew they would end real soon, it didn’t bother us one bit. We are now in the flat land of Kansas. We decided to take a rest day tomorrow while we are in Pittsburg. This is a large town of almost 20,000. This town has everything including Wal-Mart, a bowling alley, and a theater.
Last night the heat was unbearable. Being in a tent with the rain fly in tact, with the temperature in the 80’s, and absolutely no breeze is like being in a sauna. I didn’t want to take the rain fly off, because there was talk earlier about some rain. I slept with my towel close by, it was that hot.
In the morning, Marilyn came by to check up on us, but only George was up. I was in my tent preparing my entry for my blog. Once everyone was up, we all started getting our things together for our ride. We bid each other good luck and happy riding, while we slipped away one by one. We pulled into a café for breakfast. I ordered the breakfast special. The food was good, but was served way too much. I couldn’t finish it all. On our way out, we met a gentleman driving a custom made hot rod. He and a friend was just pulling in for some breakfast as we were leaving. “Nice car”. I said. “Thanks, where you guys headed?” he asked. From there we talked about our ride and asked him about the terrain ahead. He told us that we were just about out of the hills, and will be riding on flat land once in Kansas. We were glad to hear that. “Just one thing.” He said. “You’ve got three more big hills before coming to a bend in the road. From there on everything is flat.” He said. The sounded like he knew what he was talking about, so we took his word at it, and headed down the road.
There wasn’t going to be much for the first seven or eight miles, so we pondered on weather or not to get something for the road. We decided it can wait since we just had breakfast. It was over cast, so the temperature wasn’t quite there yet. But everyone we had talked to, told us that it was going to get hotter than yesterday. I was prepared for the battle. I didn’t take much pictures at first. We were rolling along at such a comfortable speed, that it seemed a shame to stop. I did take a few with my point and shoot while I was riding, just so I’d have something for today’s entry.
We pulled up to the intersection where the store was supposed to be, but it was closed, or should I say, “Abandoned“. Lisa thought this might be the case, so reminded me to refill all my water bottles before we left. So it wasn’t like we were out. But still, the thought of a nice, ice cold, drink was something I was looking forward to……………. We moved on, a few miles later, be came across a church. We stopped to see if anyone was around, and see if they had a drinking fountain or something. There was none of the above. As we were walking around, we noticed a very well kept grave yard out back. One of the best maintained ones I’ve seen. We rode around it (I was actually looking for water), and noticed that some of the head stones dated back to the early 1800’s. I saw one that read 1807.
We pushed on. The roads by this time became straight. I was I had auto pilot for my bike. I could have taken a nap while riding………… Off in the distance, we could see something, maybe a gas station, or store, or maybe even a town. As we got closer, we could see it was an intersection. At that point, we would go from highway Z to highway A. When we got there, we noticed that what we saw was a couple of big farming equipment supply stores. I mean big ones. We almost didn’t stop, but figured what the hell. I’m glad we did. Inside they had cold drinks, a vending machine, cold water fountain, candy, even food. We sat on comfortable sofa type seats drinking our PowerAde and talking with the owner. Come to find out, his family was one of the original settlers in these parts, and knew the history well. He told us that where the store was, used to be a town called Pennsville. William Penn’s son, came here with his 13 daughters, established the town, and gave each one of them 135 acres as they got married. There used to be stores, a bank, restaurant, etc. The town failed because they had expected a rail road to pass through there, but never did.
We ended up with conflicting reports as to how far Pittsburg was. A Missouri DOT sign said it was 23 more miles, five miles later another signs said 14 more miles, and a local that we talked to said it was only 8. We believed the local guy, since he told us he drove that road everyday. Well, he was wrong. The first sign we saw that said 23 was the right one. We knew we would eventually get there, and since it was almost flat riding, I didn’t mind at all. Even the head wind didn’t bother us too much. I think pulling the trailers actually gives us an advantage in head wind. Because of all that extra weight behind us, it pushes us when we stop peddling.
We crossed the Kansas-Missouri boarder. I was disappointed, the sign was a small one, and up pretty high, so taking a picture with us in it was not ideal. But then I remembered. We were on one of those seldom traveled back roads, so we were lucky to even get a sign…………….. We finally rolled into Pittsburg. One of the very few times that we didn’t have to climb a big hill to enter a town. Pittsburg is a lot bigger than I had imagined. It is spread out for at least 2 or 3 miles. Once entering the city limits, we rode another two miles to get to our motel. Tomorrow we get to explore this town since it will be a rest day. Aloha to you all, and thank you again for all the prayers. Aloha, Ted.