Wow. ZERO turns whatsoever after about 5 miles. Straight, straight, straight. Straight into one of the worst headwinds I've ever ridden into. Robert was a bit incredulous when I told him we were only going 6.1 mph. Then he said, "Well, at least we're getting somewhere." Indeed we were. For as bad as it was, I was in pretty good spirits. There was absolutely nothing I could do about the wind, and I had all day to do the miles, so it got to be kind of laughable. I rode alone too much today to be able to draft off of much of anyone. Tim let me tuck in for a while, but he's too strong and I couldn't keep up with him. Erie was struggling trying to draft off me at the end of the day, but eventually we all made it through the service-free day to Larned's city park. When Jim got in, he just stood there staring off into space repeating, 'unbelievable unbelievable.' And he's FROM Kansas (and had duly trained us all how to pronounce LAHR-ned).
Matt, the solo rider we'd seen in Newton, was here, too, so he and I went for some mediocre BBQ, glad we didn't have to cook. He's planning for over 100 miles tomorrow. Part of me wants to go for that, too, but I'm nowhere near as strong a rider as he is. I guess I'll have to wait on the wind.
OK, so this is at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. A refuge with hunting doesn't sound like much of a refuge. Hunting was allowed on one side of the road, but not the other, so little birdies, you better figure out which side to land on!
When you're going as slow as we are with as few landmarks/distinctive features as we have, even a county line crossing becomes a big deal! We're only about 10 miles from our destination, but it took the better part of two hours to go that distance!
