It's like Thunder, Lightning. The Way . . .

It was raining in Hutchinson this morning was frightening. 

Yesterday I didn't have much to write about. Today I do.  Here's the view from our hotel window this morning.

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The thunder and lightning and the trains prevented any of us from getting a good night's sleep. Breakfast didn't start until 7:00AM. Thom and I met and after complaining about our lack of sleep we decided we should plan on leaving at 10:00. Claudia would drive us the 10 miles to Burrton and we should see how far we could get. Our big worry was the thunderstorms that were predicted for most of the day.  We were worrying about the wrong thing.

Claudia checked the weather forecast and suggested we leave at 9:15AM. She was right again. We knew we were dealing with a strong wind from the south for most of the day, so we were happy when our route took us north about a mile after our start. We weren't so happy when the route then turned east onto a dirt road. As our tires sunk into the soft dirt about 2 inches we decided to turn around. So in our first mile we already had a hiccup.

We decided to ride on US 50. We had another hiccup when we were entering Newton. Our route had us cross 4 lanes of traffic to turn onto road that after about a half mile down the road guess what? We were supposed to turn onto a dirt road. We turned around and crossed the four lanes of traffic again and started heading east on US 50. 

A little bit further down the road US 50 merges with I-135. After we passed an exit and were face with two choices there were signs in both directions that bicycles prohibited. Thom checked his phone and said we can't go ahead so we decided to carry our bikes  across a field to a fence protecting a hospital from the Interstate or vice versa. We found a spot on the chain link fence that had a bar on the top. In case you were wondering, Thom is better at climbing a chain link fence then I am.

Here are some views of the fence and my shorts after climbing over the fence.

After we crossed the fence the sign on the hospital grounds said "Be careful aggressive nesting geese."

Here are some of the geese.

But wait there's more. We found our route again and were put on a nice bike path along Sand Creek in Newton. We enjoyed the path along Sand Creek for a mile or two. Of course the path ended and put us on a dirt road. This time we took the dirt road for only a mile and a half, When the road rejoined US 50, I suggested to Thom that I had the hang of riding on dirt and would like to try it again. Thom offered to watch. I decided to forego the opportunity and we continued on US 50. 

Claudia had offered to wait for us in Florence. We were about 10 miles away in Peabody when we felt our first drops of rain. We decided that the forecast didn't look good and while we had only ridden 40 miles it was best to call it a day. Claudia came and picked us up and we had a good lunch at the Florence Cafe. Here is the ride on Strava:

As we were finishing lunch we checked the weather forecast and saw that the threat of rain had passed. Claudia drove us back to Peabody and Thom and I headed out for the 2nd part of our ride. It was a beautiful ride with some nice scenery except when we headed due east we were dealing with a pretty severe cross wind. After about 15 miles Claudia started to text us that it was sprinkling on the way to Emporia. Even though it was 5:30 PM, it was getting a little dark because of the clouds, so we asked Claudia to drive towards us and we would stop when we saw her. It turns out we rode just short of 30 miles. Our total for the day was a hair under 70 miles. Not bad for a day we thought was going to be a wash out. Here's the 2nd ride on Strava: 

PROGRESS

We passed the halfway mark today. Whoopee! Here's the table:

TOMORROW

The forecast is not good for the next few days. We hope to make it to Missouri some day.