Off the map

After finishing a total of 96 miles I can happily say that we have finished four of seven of our adventure cycling bike maps, and hard doing to be making up a route in order to connect with the next map up in Kansas City, Mo.  We are off the map!  

I'm not going lie.  Today was more or less the same scenery as the last two.  

I woke up to Tom's smiling face.

We got to see lots of corn.

And we didn't have to climb that mountain again.

But we did have a pretty great day.  After sleeping in the town park (the first picture) we set off forwards Great Bend the first city with an open bike shop in about four hundred miles.  Although it was not dire to get to a bike shop I did need to visit one soon to replace a tire that was almost worn through.

The orange strip that you see is what's called a warning strip. "change me or I will disintegrate and explode", is more or less what it means (more on the less side).  In actually it means that the tire is nearly worn through and will no longer protect the tube on the inside. So with that in mind when we found out there was a bike shop 96 miles away we knew our goal for the day.  

I don't know if you've ever been so focused that even the thought of a conversation seems a little absurd.  Well today that was us.  We dominated that headwind!  I didn't think it was possible but we maintained an average of 15 mph (yay broke the 12 streak) and even reached speeds up to 21 mph...all of this with headwind! Whoop whoop!!!  Also thanks for the prayers for tailwind we actually had about 15 minutes of tailwind of which we took FUULLL advantage🌽🚴.  We were all soo excited.  It was a total moral boost after pushing hard all morning.  

For lunch we stopped just outside of Alexander (the end of our map).  And after a meal of cheese summer sausage and bagels we all took a power nap.  Post nap I wondered over to a group of three bike tourists.  Two of them (husband and wife) were from Sweden. They have been doing tours for quite some time and have explored a good bit of Europe via bicycle.  This particular tour started in their home country and headed forwards England.  From England they caught a boat to the U.S. and are heading westward to San Francisco (a four month journey).  It's so much fun spending time listening and hearing about other people's story.  I get such a kick out of it.

After lunch we pedaled over to Great Bend, the city where the bike shop is located, and literally made it there 15 minutes after 6 (the sign said that they closed at 6)  Haha cruel irony.

The cool thing is we had called ahead at 5:30 and they stayed open for us.  Sweetness!  I now have a new tire.  

Yay!

I also have a full belly.

And a couple of heavy eyelids 😴.

 Before I sign off though I want to give a few shout outs.  Thanks Elizabeth (and by extension the Barton's) for helping out with the food $, Ruby Tuesdays, and about 15 minutes in a vehicle that went faster than 40mph WITH NO EFFORT REQUIRED aka a car.  It was all awesome!

Thanks Despicable Me 2 for fulfilling all my minion obsessions.  You were hilarious.

Thanks parientals and sister for all of your prayers and support😎

And last but certainly not least thanks to the Foundation for Fighting Blindness for providing us with the tools to raise awareness and support for people who have gone or are going blind like our dad.  It has been a true blessing to be able to give back someone who has made such a great impact on our lives.  Love you dad

~Paul