Today was a very tough day of bicycling. It was supposed to be 77 miles but because of detours because of all the rain and road construction we ended up riding 89 miles. That was bad enough but we road into a 17 mph headwind all day. Riding into a headwind is worse than hill climbing because you don’t get a rest. With hills you get to go downhill after every hill, but with this wind you have to keep grinding it out all day long. We didn’t get into camp until 8:00 pm and every part of my body was sore. But on a positive note the rain quit and the sun was shining most of the afternoon and is supposed to all day tomorrow as well.

We are camping in a porch area of a sports complex which is handy because we don’t need to set up tents. I was to tired to do much for dinner so I ate two cans of sardines. We are in Hoisington, Kansas tonight.

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, (which I only sent a couple of hours ago because of no WiFi, I walked up to the Library and used theirs) we are staying in the basement of the Luthern Church in Hutchinson, Kansas. We arrived yesterday in the midst of torrential rain, had a good nights sleep, a great breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, orange juice, and coffee, that Tom cooked. We are hanging out here for the day, spending another night and heading off to Hoisington, Kansas where we will camp in the City Park for free. Probably won’t be any showers there for us. Handi-wipes in the bathroom will have to suffice.

It has been raining all day, today, and the forecast is for heavy rain all night and quitting tomorrow with lots of sunshine!

For those of you who have been praying for me, the last two nights I have slept like a baby and woken up feeling very rested and energized.

Today I am spending my time writing notes to people, getting caught up on my Bible reading and praying, and memorizing Bible verses.

Tomorrow is flat terrain and 77 miles of riding. Two more days and we will be in Colorado.

Day 27! You have got to be kidding me! It seems like we just started, but on the other hand, I can’t remember much of what we did and saw in the first week! Whooooeeeeeee in a couple of days we will be half done, and I am just now getting in shape,

It has rained over four inches last night, and it is still raining. We are at a church tonight, and we are going to hang around here all day tomorrow until the worst of this storm passes, Zion Lutheran Church in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Eddie and Jeanette DeHaven used to attend JBC and Eddie’s Dad and Mom still attend. Eddie got a job in Wichita, Kansas, three years ago, and they are going to come and visit us tonight; they are bringing dessert😀

About four blocks from the church is a bicycle shop, so we took Cliff’s and Tom’s bikes in. Cliff’s bike got a new rear cassette that was worn badly and a new tire, the old one was bald. Tom is getting new rear brakes installed. My bike is working like a charm.

Because we are taking a day off tomorrow Cliff, Dave, and I are going to go to a “Buffalo Hot Wings” place where they have giant screen TV’s and we are going to watch the NBA playoff game between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks.

This morning Tom went to the grocery store and fixed us bacon, eggs, and hash browns!

Today the ride was 67 miles from Chanute to Eureka, Kansas. We are staying in a local motel instead of camping because of the heavy rain. The place where we were intending to camp was the city park, but they have no showers, electricity, or WiFi, and there were no other campgrounds or facilities around. The nice thing about these small-town motels is that they are inexpensive and because the town is on the transAmerica Route they are very friendly and accommodating to bicyclists. For the next 6 days we have flat terrain to ride on, and hopefully, the monsoons end soon.

I mentioned this before, but one of the highlights of this trip is all the friendly people we have encountered, especially in these small country towns. Almost every day we will stop at a small restaurant about noon for a coke and sandwich and almost always will get in great conversations with local people who are very interested in what we are doing.

I have mentioned in the past that on these bicycle trips my Parkinson’s almost totally goes away, but that has not been the case on this trip for some reason. I am fine while riding but at night it has gotten worse with the main consequence being that I can’t sleep. I started sleeping in the pickup with the seat back because I don’t role over or move much. My muscles get very rigid when I don’t move and then when I do role over the muscle pain that I feel wakes me up with a start. I envision it like my muscles being water and when I don’t move they turn to ice, and then when I do move the ice cracks.

Sometimes when I lay there at night frustrated and weary because of little sleep, I think about the people in our church who I have been praying for who have cancer, MS, and a variety of other health issues way worse than mine, and I thank the Lord for my incredible life, amazing blessings, super family, and the world’s best church family.

The main thing that I praise the Lord for is the total confidence and faith that sometime soon (at least within 30 years) I will be with the Lord with an incomprehensible and amazing new body, and in the meantime I will rejoice and not grumble, whine, or feel sorry for myself.

Today was the easiest, most relaxed day of biking we have had to this point. There were some hills, but they were so gradual that I didn’t shift down at all, in fact I hardly ever was out of my highest gear today. The traffic was minimal, and we had a little bit of a tailwind for most of the day. Oh, and we only rode 56 miles. It was so easy that we are counting it a rest day. I like bicycling in Kansas. It was sunny but cool, almost cold. We are camping in the city park of Chanult, Kansas. It isn’t the nicest place we have camped but it is free. The forecast is for a bunch of rain in the next three days😫🥺😢 I had more pictures but the cell coverage is so weak that it wouldn’t send them.

We had another doozy of a thunder, lightening, wind, and torrential rain storm last night and today. When you are tent camping heavy rainfall is not fun. Tonight we hung tents out to dry now that the rain has stopped and after we got them set up we sprayed the rain flys with silicone waterproofing. Whenever Patty went with me on a bicycle trip we would rent a motel room for the night if it was raining, and we almost did tonight, but we went the cheap route in that the campground spot was $10 for the night for all of us.

We are in the town of Pittsburg, Kansas tonight. We didn’t see any signs saying “entering Kansas” as we crossed the state line so we weren’t able to take our picture if front of it like every other State we have entered. I guess we can take our picture in front of a car with a Kansas licence plate, and call it good!

There is a bike shop here in Pittsburg, and Tom was able to get the broken rim on his bike fixed. We are making guesses on who’s bike will be the next one to break down. So far, we have traveled 1,663 miles on our bicycles. Because of bicycle problems, my total miles biked is 1,482. As I predicted, I was sore in a multitude of places because of my gravel wreck yesterday, but I expect that all will be normal tomorrow.

The bicycle mapping app that we are using for this trip gives us a lot of information, and one bit of information that is helpful is that it tells us the total feet that we have climbed each day. A thousand-foot day is basically flat; a two thousand foot day means we had some hills but not too many and not too high; a three thousand foot day has some good size hills; a four thousand foot day is getting serious; a five thousand foot day is climbing all day long often with rollers ; and a six thousand foot day is a near-death experience. We have had two 6,000 foot days so far and a couple more coming up. Tomorrow is a 1,300 foot day, yeh Kansas!

Today was an easy day of bicycling. It was only 45 miles long, it was primarily flat with an occasional hill to climb, there were no dogs, I only got five mosquito bites, there was no rain, and we had a ten mile an hour tailwind for half the day. One time I was going 26 mph on a flat road with very little pedaling because the wind was blowing so hard.

We did have five miles of gravel road today and I hate riding on gravel. The reason I hate riding on gravel is because the skinny bike tires that we have scoot out from under you like you were on ice, and sure enough I had a wreck today on that hated gravel. No blood and nothing was broken on me or my bike, but I do have a number of aches, paines, and pulled muscles tonight, and I probably will discover some more in the morning. As a 73 year old man I have a limited number of bicycle wrecks in me.

We are camped at Mutton Creek campground and Marina tonight which is on the Stockton reservoir and the town of Stockton.

I talk to people all the time about our bicycle trip across the U.S. and today I had a bunch. The first line of conversation is about the details of how far, how far today, and various adventures, then the next line of questions and discussion is why? It is a hard question to answer with most people because they really don’t understand the concept of enjoying a challenge so I usually don’t even try, but today there was a fellow at the Marinia that was about my age and into Mountain biking and still does some pretty hairy stuff, we had a great conversation.

Tom hit a pothole yesterday going pretty fast and broke his back rim. It isn’t broke badly but there is a crack that runs all the way across the rim. He and Dave spent all day at bike shops in Springfield but didn’t have any success finding a shop that had a rim his size. The town we will be camping in tomorrow is Pittsburg, Kansas and there is a bike shop there so he is going to ride his bike and see what happens. The worst that can happen is he has to call Dave to come pick him up, but Dave is getting used to that.

It is supposed to thunder and lightening and rain tonight with strong winds. I hope it is all over in the morning. We have the tents staked and tied down extra secure and everything put away so it won’t get wet.

I am sorry I didn’t get any pictures today, tomorrow I will for sure. We will enter into Kansas tomorrow and lots of flat riding coming up.

We were biking today and a big thunderstorm blew in, unbelievably fast. Lightening was everywhere, the thunder was super loud, the wind started blowing hard, the rain was coming down monsoon style and it was hailing little marble size ice. I couldn’t ride in it, so I pulled off on a gravel patch and stood there with my head down and pretended that I was in a tent. I had my rain gear on, so the only thing getting wet was my feet, which got really wet and very cold. I put my hands in my pockets because the hail would sting badly when it hit bearskin. I stood there for 30 minutes, and then it let up enough to bike 8 miles to the next town. I just got into McDonald’s, and it started again, only worse. Dave was already in McDonald’s, so I called the rest who were strung out over a mile and told them where I was, so they headed there. We sat in there and drank coffee for a while, and then when it slowed down a bit, everyone went out and rearranged all the camping stuff so we could all get our bike’s in the trailer. We then drove the remaining 20 miles to our campsite at the KOA in Springfield, Missouri. It was supposed to be an 80-mile day, but it turned into a 60-mile bike ride, and a 20-mile pickup ride. The campground had some cabins for rent, so we rented the biggest one they had. I am now sitting on the couch writing this blog.

Tomorrow we are supposed to have a relatively easy day, only 50 miles and relatively flat. The rollers are less steep and not as tall. Hopefully it isn’t going to rain on us.

Last night we had a racoon visit our campground and he made a royal mess and ate a bunch of our food. He liked the freeze dried stuff especially well. We will keep stuff locked up from here on out.

Dave and I drove 100 miles to St Louis to pick up Tom Zilverberg from the airport who will be riding with us to the end. We have his bike in our trailer. We have another rider joining us in Colorado. Cliff and Kathy, and Terri are riding their bikes to our next campsite in Eminence, Missouri, which is about 85 miles. They will ride into camp about the time we arrive there. We will then tell them what a hard day we had riding in the air condtioned pick up with soft seats, and how easy they had it cruising along on their bicycles.

Tom is way more hard of hearing than I am and Dave has a hearing loss as well, and it is really hard writing this blog while they are talking to each other, because Tom is in the back seat and Dave is driving and they are shouting at each other, really loud to be heard, and they still say, huh, about every other sentence.

I am finally getting into somewhat of a routine where I am getting in some writing time, besides this blog, book reading, listen to some sermons, Bible reading, scripture memory, and prayer time.

Tonights campground is much nicer than last nights in that it has showers and WiFi. I might even be able to “live stream” the NBA playoff game between Boston and Miami.

Today was an 85 miler with lots of rollers, big rollers, but I only biked 42 miles of it because of the rain this morning and because I like 42 miles and I don’t like 85. Sounds like an old wimp writing that 😁.I thought the Appalations were bad, but I think the Ozarks are worse. I can’t wait until we get to the Rockies, and do some climbing that just goes up for a long time instead of up and down, up and down, up and down. After awhile they start working on your mind when you get to the top of one and see another and you mentally scream, “Oh no, not another one, give me a break!”

It is a lot like life, one problem, then a trial, then a hassle, then a sickness, then an unexpected bill, then somebody gets mad at you, then a problem at work, then a close friend stops speaking to you because of your political view, then your dog dies. Yikes! When does it end?? When we get to heaven, and not a day sooner, so make up your mind to enjoy the ride down the hill and the challenge of making it up the hill. That is life by God’s design.

Here is a picture of the silhouette of our day.

Tonight we are camping at Mountain Grove, Missouri. A nice campground with very nice showers and lots of shade and WiFi. I learned about Missouri today, they have lots of turtles. I know that because we have seen dozens run over on the road, and I saw a couple trying to make it across before they got run over. There is probably some joke about the turtle crossing the road that I have’t heard yet. I also learned the Missouri has Armadillos because I saw them run over in the road as well. I thought that only Texas had Armadillos.