Kansas Day 2

42 miles and good weather. More headwind. They visited with a biker going the opposite direction from Astoria; another mid-life crisis? Camped at city park in Tribune Kansas. Another day filled with fields and rolling hills and fields and grain silos. A shower and meal at the truck stop in town finished the day. I have included Mel's e-mail below sent on Tuesday:
"We are in Laoti, Kansas--just had a grape limeade. Life is looking good again. We started two days ago in Ness City, Kansas. We were going to start in Alexander, Kansas (20 miles further east), but they only had 75 people living there--no motel. So we chose to begin where we could find a motel to stay in. Technically we are beginning in the center of the U.S. It was an emotional parting from our wives. After driving hundreds of miles over the route we will take, there was definitely a twinge of doubt in my mind that we could do this. It was easier thinking we could do this back in Salt Lake rather than facing the physical fact. Daunting. Maybe we are as nuts as people were saying to us all along. But we just met an English fellow biking across the U.S. He is taking the traditional route, beginning in Astoria, Oregon. He has come 2300 miles and is ramping it up to 80-100 miles a day because his wife is due to deliver on Nov. 3 in Hampton Court (near Coventry) in England. He is headed for Norfolk, Virginia. He looked like he is packing 240 pounds so maybe I won't come back looking like a Somalian. Of course he said he spends his evenings in pubs. He says Americans are much more open than the Europeans. That has been our experience every day. People along this route are used to the bike people, but they still love to talk with us and see where we are going and what makes us tick. Can't help them there. In our first 5 miles an old farmer stopped us and gave us a $1. Told us to buy a beer. Good people. Said he saw the centennial bike bunch come through in 1976 that started this whole cross country bike riding business. Told us we should have stayed with him and he could have given us a good enough breakfast to last us all the way to Tribune which is our stop tonight. Another 22 miles to go. We had a nice night in the Scott City Park last night. Towns let you do that here. Everyone welcomes us. We had a very refreshing rhubarb slush that we bought from some Mennonites in the park at a small farmer's market. I've got to buy me some Ibuprofin to take away the seat ache. It will take about a week to get what us bikers call the iron butt. Right now mine is a cheap Chinese tin." Mel Bashore