Kiki Bikes Across America

Sunday, June 21st: Ash Grove, MO to Pittsburg, Kansas

Today we woke up around 6:15 to a nice morning – with a nice breeze, cooler air and the sun starting to peek over the trees into the city park. I slept well, just not enough. I need to get to bed earlier and stop trying to keep up with the website and blog – it’s so time consuming.

Anyway, I woke up, started packing things and then made hot water for oatmeal for all of us. We put bananas in the oatmeal and I had some chocolate covered raisinets that I bought yesterday, but that melted. So I chopped up the raisinets and we put those in the oatmeal too with the bananas. It tasted a lot like a banana boat you can do in a camp fire. It was yummy. Chris then went to Roberts Supermarket and bought some chocolate donuts and chocolate milk. I wasn’t planning to eat any, but they both couldn’t finish their 3rd donut for each of them, so I had to take care of that and eat 2 donuts (in addition to the banana + oatmeal with banana and chocolate + finishing my 1/2 gallon of OJ). We met a nice lady (Marilyn) who was out with her dog this morning and she stopped to chat and told us she lived in California for 17 years and loved it and would love to go back, but she lost everything in an earthquake years ago and moved back to the Missouri area. She had heard of couchsurfing.com and was very interesting in hearing about our trip and everything, so we talked for a little bit and then finished packing up and getting ready for the day.

Hot air balloon going over Ash Grove's city park in the morning.

We rolled out just after 9am and started on towards Everton, where we thought we could replenish water. Apparently nothing was actually in Everton, but we were still fine on water. We had a good number of smallish up and downs in the terrain. And about 20 miles or so from Golden Ciity things started to flatten out and the wind really picked up. We had a southwest wind coming at us as we were heading west, so it was difficult riding, not to mention the really rough pavement in some areas.

Cute dogs that I gave some of my poptart to (shhh!)

Flat land just before Golden City, MO

We arrived to Golden City, where I’d read online about a pie shop (from Greg’s blog). Sure enough, it was there – and we stopped and had lunch. I got a ham sandwich which was really good with some scalloped potatoes and of course pie for dessert. I started out with strawberry pie and still wasn’t full so split a piece of coconut cream pie with Chris.

Cooky's Cafe in Golden City, MO - lots of homemade pies!

Yummy coconut cream pie!

That satisfied me and then we headed out for Pittsburg shortly after 3pm. We had a bit over 33 miles to go and the wind was really strong and a headwind/sidewind still. It was slow going and monotonous to the point where your eyes would start to feel tired and sleepy and you had to make sure to stay awake and not go off the road. Luckily we rotated a bit (more the guys than me) – I was really not enjoying the wind and knew if I was leading, we’d be going even slower… so they rotated a bit leading and kept the pace up around 13-17mph into headwinds which was really good. We stopped at the last gas station in Missouri hoping to find ice cream to celebrate leaving Missouri, but were disappointed as they didn’t have any. We then stopped and took more mandatory “Welcome to Kansas” photos, but their sign was a bit puny and not very exciting.

In Kansas we are!

Chris, Me, and George just arriving to Kansas

A little while later, about 3-4 miles and we were in Pittsburg. We first went in search of a park where we could camp and came across Lincoln Park, but were greeted by friendly people in the sports complex who offered up free hamburgs and hot dogs along with a gatorade. They were just finishing shutting down from the weekend’s events of a softball tournament and had left over food. So Chris and I went for a hamburg and hot dog each as well as a gatorade.

I then called over to the Fire Department to ask if they knew of any place where we might be able to store our belongings on our rest day and had mentioned that we’d stayed at fire houses before. The chief, Scott, was really friendly and said for us to come on down and he’d figure something out. Needless to say, he figured it out really fast and hooked us up. He was waiting for us and  welcomed us as we rode in.

Pittsburg Fire Department in Pittsburg, Kansas

He showed us where we’d sleep, do laundry, eat, that we had wi-fi and computer access if we wanted. He really showed us everything and we really have no reason to leave tomorrow except to go see a movie, pick up mail, and restock things from Walmart! HAHA. It is great here. We all had spaghetti and salad for dinner (yes, on top of a hamburg and hot dog)… and then a warm brownie with vanilla ice cream. And more orange juice – love it! It’s been great and the firemen and chief are all really cool and friendly, but they’ll be switching out with a different crew around 6-7am in the morning, so we won’t see them again.

Anyway, so today wasn’t too bad – aside from all the wind which was frustrating. That, and I think my lips are finally burned – I had to use chapstick for the first time today during the entire trip, but I think it was too late and they were already burned from either sun or wind. I’m not sure yet. I also got a bit of sun on my face, but not burned or anything. I’ve been using sunscreen two or three times a day to keep from getting burned – instead I just have lovely tan lines … haha!

So tomorrow’s a rest day for us here in Pittsburg which is going to be very nice!

GPS Stats:
71.6 miles
06:23 moving time
11.2 avg speed
33.5 max speed

Computer Stats:
72.41 miles
06:21:19 moving time
11.4 avg speed
34.0 max speed

Snake count: 2
Dog chases: 0, but met two really friendly labs when we stopped at a house to refill water bottles (no one was home except for the labs). George uploaded vidoes of the dogs to his youtube.