Someone turn down the heat! - July 30

Well it was a good morning for we did not get hit by sprinklers, and the temperature was still below 80. We rode all morning to the town of Ness City, Kansas for a water fill up and to escape the heat for a bit. My watch read about 12:30 when we left the town and it was 101 degrees. We made it 13 more miles and realized that we made a huge mistake, it's over 101 degrees and we are biking. We walked into a building, had no idea what it was, and just died on the floor in front of the air conditioner. Finally someone came out of the shop and asked us if we were ok, someone made a noise and they said if we need water to just ask. We met a pretty crazy guy in the store who was also biking across country, but going west. We talked about the things we would see and passed back out on the floor for a good hour or so. We decided it cooled down enough to ride again, you would be surprise how much of a difference 105 degrees to 98 degrees really is. We biked about 8 miles and stopped at a rest stop just soaked head to toe with sweat. Well we had to make up miles so we got back on and kept on keeping on. A storm was rolling across the plains to our left and was pretty sweet to watch until it started to roll our way. We found shelter in a farmers barn not to far off the road. When we knocked on the door to the house no one answered so we figured they were not home or did not care. After sitting in the barn and watching two storms pass over a tractor neared us. The farmer, Richard, was returning from the fields and did not mind us in his barn at all, in fact he was a cool guy and talked to us for about 20 min. He gave us permission to sleep in his barn and left. He says he got home and felt guilty in a home while we were in a barn, so he came back and took us with him. We met his family, Thes (wife) and Mathew (son). We showered and ate an amazing meal cooked by Thes. Amazing family! Thank you so much to them!




Above: the three of us looking at a kansas map trying to figure out if we were going to stay on the transamerica trail or make our own route though Kansas.


Above:


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Location:Farmers barn, Kansas