A Eureka! Moment

After yesterday's sweatfest it was a relief to walk outside this morning to blissfully cool temperatures and overcast skies. Kate and Dean got up early to prepare a fabulous breakfast spread. Between the great steak dinner and the complete breakfast, our stay at Tom's sister's was very theraputic. Dean also entertained us with a DVD documentary of the local claim-to-fame: Big Brutus, the giant drag-line coal mining shovel that was built in 1962 and is now a local tourist attraction.

Yesterday we detoured about 15 miles south of the ACA route, into the wind, to get to Tom's sister's. Today we had to return north to rejoin the route, which then angles further north to Eureka. Wouldn't you know, with the cooler temperatures, the wind today had switched and was blowing from the north. Drat!

In spite of the wind, we both felt stronger than we had the day before so we made good time. That is, until Tom had a flat rear tire. And, until our intersection route tried to put us on yet another gravel road. (You would think we would have learned by now to double check the route. And, in fact, we had tried to do just that last night. But it can be surprisingly hard to identify gravel roads on Google Maps, and our internet connections often leave something to be desired.)

We were able to successfully find and an on-the-fly alternative route that only involved about a mile of backtracking. The only problem was that it bypassed the town where we had planned to stop for lunch. There was another town on the map called Severy, but it turned out to be a ghost town (at least the part we went through). We found some picnic tables behind a bar that was either closed or abandoned and ate what snacks we had.

Our not-so-swanky lunch spot...

... but it looks like someone enjoyed themselves

After that it was a 13 mile slog directly into the stiff north wind. Riding into the wind is when it's super helpful to have a partner. We took turns taking one-mile pulls, keeping the effort moderate, and made it with little trouble. In spite of the wind, the ride today was enjoyable due to the cooler temperatures, beautiful landscape, shorter distance, and rejuvenated legs.

The celebration was nowhere to be found. See the flag? We rode into that wind.

When we got to the hotel we spent some time making some phone calls to book our motels for the next several days. We had avoided calling too far in advance due to all the uncertainties of travel by bicycle. Sure enough, when we tried to book our motel in Eads, Colorado, we learned that apparently the county fair is that weekend and all (meaning both) the motels are booked. We had to do some re-planning of our itinerary resulting in a bit of non-ideal spacing (a 64 mile day, and a 118 mile day), but I think we are set.

Today's ride was 81 miles, relatively flat, from southwest of Parsons, to Eureka, Kansas.

ACA sticker on the hotel window