Day 39: What A Beautiful Country

Picture: Typical terrain for the day.



Today was one of my top 5 favorite days on the bike thus far. We traveled 70 miles today from Emporia, KS to Topeka, KS. We took the back country roads today which are always a nice breather from the typical business of an interstate. The country out here in western KS is beautiful; our route took us through the beautiful area known as The Flint Hills. It’s not the same beauty of the mountains in the Northwest but has its own beauty of open country. Here there are large grazing farms with a ton of cows, I guess this side of the state gets more rain so the land out here is very green with lots of rolling hills and trees. It is a nice change from the flatness of eastern KS, getting to vary speeds keeps the ride more interesting. This morning was a little cloudy but the sunrise was unreal, the sun was a deep orange ball just barely peering over the horizon. Its mornings like this that make this trip addicting, getting to be out in the country with not a soul out and all you hear are the shared noises of the birds waking up and your wheels humming on the pavement as the sun rises at 6AM, sometimes it feels like we are the only ones seeing the sun at this hour.
Picture: Dom and I in the early morning.



Today we had a ride along, Tim has been riding with the Trans Team on this particular day since 2004. He works at Kansas State and I think everyone had a good time talking with him; he was an advisor at K-State when there was a chapter there.


Picture: Joel, Me and Paul enjoying the countryside.

With the tail wind we were able to have a faster day on the bike and in no time we were in Topeka. We had an arrival at the TARC, an organization serving people with disabilities in their area, where the staff and some of the KS guys had family that greeted us. Hot dogs and chips were for lunch followed by a shuttle over to the local YMCA so we could get showered up.
We then headed back and a bunch of the guys took a nap. I was exhausted because of how busy we have been the last few days, lacking sleep I accidentally took a 3 hour nap but I guess my body needed it. The TARC then served us some tasty Mexican and pasta dishes for dinner with Wendy’s Frostys for dessert, mmmm good. After dinner everyone headed to watch the Topeka Coyotes play Iowa in an arena football game where we flipped the coin to see who got possession first. I have never been to an arena football game so it was a fun experience for me and all the guys.

Picture: Cheese, Cameron, Eric, Cody, and Myself rolling into the last stretch of the day.



We have 5AM wake-up tomorrow as we head to Olathe where we will have another day off! I’m looking forward to the day off so I can catch up on some blogs and get that extra sleep I have needed.

Picture: It was an intense moment in the game when the Push America team came out onto the field to flip to see who got ball first!