Can't believe it's been almost another week since I last updated (and sorry I start every post like this; time seems to simultaneously fly as the days are so long...maybe it's the 5 AM wake-ups.) We traveled from Washington, MO to Jefferson City, the capital, on the Katy Trail again. The Katy Trail was not quite as enjoyable this time, mainly because we were on it for 70 miles instead of 30, and the rough gravel terrain began to wear on our legs and shoulders...rough ride. Also, the wind was absolutely horrible any time we would break out of the woods, so it made for a challenging time. We made it into Jeff City which was AWESOME to see--really neat, smaller city with a beautiful capitol building and historic downtown.
| More Katy Trail! |
| Us at the Jefferson City capitol building |
From there, we traveled to Sedalia, MO (NOT on the Katy Trail)--let's just say I was ready for smooth pavement again. We still had the headwind throwing us back, but it wasn't too bad. We stopped in a small town for lunch where the people were just fascinated with our summer adventures--always reinforcing for us to see people so interested in what we're doing! We got to bed early that night, preparing for our longest day yet to Kansas City, MO. The ride was intended to be our first "century" (over 100 miles), but our cue sheet (directions) in the morning only listed 90 miles, so we were all pretty excited about that.
The morning's ride was absolutely beautiful--rolling hills through rural areas of MO (who knew Missouri had hills? I'm finding that no state is actually flat, as promised.) We stopped for lunch around mile 30 and got back on the road for the next stretch. We encountered some construction and had to reroute around it on a gravel road (the "Katy Trail 2.0," as it was deemed by one of our riders--bumpy gravel road AND steep hills.) This added about 4-5 miles, so our mileage was getting dangerously close to that century we had prepared for anyway. We stopped for a second lunch around mile 70 and then pushed off once again to ANOTHER road closed for construction. We did see a house out in the middle of nowhere that had some exotic animals for passersby to look at, including spider monkeys, lemurs, and alligators on an island in a pond in their front yard...who would've thought in rural MO?
| Lemur on "Monkey Island" in MO! |
We finally made it into Raytown, MO, just outside of Kansas City, and my mileage reached 97--my record as of now! A couple of riders rode around the block a few more times to get theirs to 100--I'm waiting for our next century to get that high. We stayed at the church of one of our riders, Johnny Foster, and his family and church community was so incredibly supportive, interested, and wonderful. We arrived and they showed us a bulletin board where they had all of our pictures and a map tracking our progress. They've been hosting for years; that's how Johnny actually got started with Bike and Build. It was a blast meeting his friends and family! On Saturday, we had a Build Day in Kansas City, KS (a little confusing, but it's actually a different city from Kansas City, MO.) It was a long day, but always nice to get off the bike. Saturday night the whole group was able to go out to a dancing bar together, which was a lot of fun.
| Dancing in Kansas City! |
Sunday we had a day off-yay! I attended the service at the Blue Ridge Presbyterian Church in the morning, which was wonderful. They blessed each rider individually, which was extremely sweet. We had a potluck with the church community afterwards and got to give the members a presentation about what we're doing, which is always reinforcing for us as riders. After the potluck, I got to meet up with my cousin Charlie [that's Charlie Fehl :)], his girlfriend, and some of his friends from Michigan. We went downtown to the Kansas City art museum, which was pretty incredible, and then walked around the Plaza and Westport neighborhoods in town. I absolutely loved the city!
| Charlie and I on the Art Museum lawn with a giant shuttlecock |
| Kansas City-the city of fountains |
Leaving Kansas City, we traveled to Lawrence, KS, home of the University of Kansas. Since it was a shorter ride, we planned a Costume Day on the bike and everyone got very into it! You can see some of the costumes below...
| The whole group |
| Johnny as Mario! (pumping his bike tires) |
| Ke$ha joins the group |
| Abby the flight attendant, ready to bike |
(Sorry about the formatting on these pictures; it's extremely finicky.) The costumes were so hilarious and I loved watching the looks we got from construction workers and passersby, especially the ones stemming from Jacob Snyder's costume. He wore a dress and a flower in his helmet, and proceeded to act in character all day: a Southern belle named Annabelle Smith from Peach Fuzz, AL. The ride was pretty tough, especially with the costumes weighing us down and some surprise Kansas hills, but that kept us laughing all day.
We arrived in Lawrence and I met up with Charlie again and got to see his school and the molecules he's created in his chem lab--whiz kid, for sure. I absolutely loved downtown Lawrence--wish I'd taken more pictures! We got ice cream at a local place, Maddy and Syla's, and it's been my favorite ice cream on the trip so far! Big deal.
This morning we headed for Manhattan, KS on an 86-mile ride. We got extremely lucky with the weather conditions--high of 85 and even a tailwind helping us along! It was a great day for a bike ride. We didn't stop a whole lot, except to visit the Oz Museum in Wamego, KS--basically just some artifacts from the movie that a local historian was able to collect, but it was pretty cool to see! [My camera battery died; that's why I don't have more pictures for you at the moment!] The ride flew by and we made it to Manhattan (the "Little Apple," home of Kansas State University--our leaders joke that our route is not only the Tour de Farms, but also the Tour de Colleges) around 2:30 PM, with stops. The church we're staying at here is absolutely incredible; they must have hosted Bike and Build before, because they knew exactly what we would want/need: tons of food (they had grilled burgers for us when we got here), plenty of couches/cots to sleep on, ping pong/pool/foosball tables, TVs, computers with Internet, so much to do. The downtown area of Manhattan also seems very cool: tons of restaurants, bars, and shops. Tomorrow is another day off, and we've been offered free massages, yoga, Chipotle, water park passes, zoo passes, and rides to a nearby swimming hole/waterfall. Sometimes these days off are a little overwhelming because there's too much to do!
After our day off, we have a long stretch of ride days in Kansas, which we consistently hear is the hardest state, from alums who have done this route before. It's long, hot, windy, and boring. We're coming up with some fun things to do, like a scavenger hunt, but I think we're all pretty excited to get out west!
I'm signing off for now, but I'll hopefully be back with more soon! Also, I found some drafts of posts I thought I had posted a long time ago, so I'll try to put those up--whoops! Thanks for reading this extremely long post!
