You would not believe the diversity we saw across Kansas! We could hardly believe it ourselves!
So many plains! We saw…
Plains with corn!
Plains with grass!
Plains with flowers!
Plains with cows!
Plains with dirt!
Plains with oil wells!
Plains with hay bales!
OK, so you might be picking up on the sarcasm. Kansas was, in fact, home to some of the most dull stretches of cycling we’ve done on this trip. Miles and miles of plains stretched in every direction, with little change in terrain over the course of a day. As we looked down the long, straight roads, we could often spot a cluster of silos and trees that indicated the location of the next town–still 12-15 miles ahead. These small town oases sometimes had nothing more than a gas station, but we would sit for an hour, enjoying the air-conditioning and a large Coke or Gatorade.
Despite its lack of spectacular scenery, Kansas had some redeeming virtues that actually made our time there enjoyable on the whole.
First of all, we were able to make great time. When we were in Utah, we met an English cyclist headed west who mentioned a game he played while cycling across Kansas. It’s called, “Get the heck out of Kansas.” We have decided that most touring cyclists must play this same game. Why not? For the first time in months, we had a generally flat terrain, paired with previous weeks of riding at higher elevations, meaning more red blood cells and less cardio effort. This awesome combination helped us achieve our second century day on the Tour and the highest distance week we have ever done– 877 kilometers/526 miles.
This century (100 miles, 161 kilometers) felt like an especially huge accomplishment as we did it on a day where the temperature was more than 100 degrees the entire afternoon!
Secondly, in Kansas, we re-entered the world of easy free camping. Suddenly, it was not only OK for us to camp in town parks, it was actually expected. We were met with a bit of surprise from the police if we actually tried to ask permission. We have been a bit timid about the town park scene after getting moved along from pavilion camping in of Kelso, Washington. But the reality is, once you’re east of the Rockies, most people in these small towns just don’t mind if you pitch your tent for the night.
Swingset and slide in the background… town park camping at its finest!
Finally, in Kansas, we hit our last official milestone of the trip—on Labor Day, we rolled over 35,000 kilometers. We have tried to take a picture every 5,000 kilometers, and as we spelled out 35K in the rocks on the side of the Kansas road, we realized that it would be the last time we do this. It’s less than a month and fewer than 1,000 miles for us to make it home.
Rolling over 35,000 kilometers (21,000 miles) on the plains of Kansas.
For us, hauling it across Kansas made great sense in our schedule. Leaving Denver, we had set the date our official homecoming, so the goal was to put in as many miles as possible on the front end of this final stretch. Kansas, with its generally flat terrain, afforded us ample opportunity to put in long days. And as we worked our way across those quiet, lonely roads, our conversation turned more and more to the changes ahead, the next season, the huge transition that is upon us. So we’re also grateful to Kansas for giving us the opportunity to think and talk through more of the details of what lies ahead of us. And as much as we’re not eager for this season to end, we are getting excited for the next season to begin.
