Day 24 – El Dorado to Hutchinson

Another hot day in Kansas. Got started early and knocked out as many miles as we good in the face of mechanical and logistical excitement.

JP was on the road before 6 and about 15 minutes before Terran and I hit the road. That’s right, Terran rode part of the route for the first time today. While it was a bit tough to get him out of bed at 5:30, we managed it and got out the door mostly on time.

We had a nice wind from the south (again) but the difference today was much of our route was to the north. About 6 miles in (and a few minutes after sunrise) Terran says “I think there’s something wrong with my rear wheel”. Indeed there was… Terran got the first flat of the trip. 15 minutes later we were on our way chasing JP again.

A few minutes later JP texted and said part of the road around mile 17 was tore up and he was SAG’ing up 2 miles to get past it. Heidi was on her way already so Terran and I figured she’d pick us up and do the same. We got to the road at mile 17 and it was clear it had recently been milled. Parts of it were pretty sketchy, but since Heidi was on her way, we pushed on. About 1/2 from the end of the milling, we hit the active construction zone. We stopped and waited for the MCC to show up rather than have to deal with heavy equipment, flagmen, and loose gravel. By the time she got there, however, the road was completely shut down. It looked like they had plowed the road and were ready to plant a crop on it.

The flagman gave us a detour that we followed the best we good.. but we ended up in basically a pasture. So we turned around and tried another route. 20 minutes later we were back on route, back on our bikes, and once again chasing JP.

By then the wind was seriously picking up.

Terran made it nearly 30 miles before calling it a day. I pushed on trying to catch JP before the temps got too crazy. JP won the battle tho, beating me to Hesston before we both called it a day. It was nearly 100 degrees by 11:30 which seemed like as good a time as any to not get heat stroke and get off the bikes.

We’re spending the night in Hutchinson, home to the Cosmosphere, a space museum. Yep, in Kansas. They’re affiliated with the Smithsonian and have an impressively diverse collection.

They even have the actual Odyssey module from the Apollo 13 mission. That alone made the trip worth it.

JP and Art spent the afternoon 600′ underground in a salt mine tour. It turns out, it’s 68 degrees all the time down there, which was way better than the 105 it turned out to be on the surface.

We had dinner at Raz Smokehouse. It was pretty upscale for a smokehouse, which is kinda cool. It’s nice to have quality smoked meats and not have to sit on folding chairs or wooden benches.

A front is moving through presently and we should have wind out of the east tomorrow. We’ll be up early trying to make hay with the wind. We’ll see how it goes.