Day 35 - June 21; Scott City, KS to Eads, CO

After having endured super nasty headwinds, crosswinds and blistering heat, we decided to get an extra early start today at 3am and were pedaling by 3:30am. The previous few days winds had us all a bit nervous since we were planning a 78 mile day which given the same conditions of past days would have been high on the difficulty scale. Our first 10 miles were more of the same with 25+mph winds from the north. Since we’re heading West, the only way to protect yourself (draft) would be to essentially ride parallel with the stronger rider which then puts the drafting rider further out into the traffic lane.

Unfortunately, the traffic lane has massive 18 wheeler trucks carrying anything from cattle, grain or the occasional farming combine! Yep, the farming combines are massive and definitely qualify as a wide load! Remember, we’re out in the road at 3:30am and although are well lit with front a back lights it still is a bit unnerving to ride with big trucks wizzing by!

Following the first 10 miles of challenging winds we experienced some light to moderate rain. This was nice at first since we had been broiling the past few days but eventually we sought some shelter at a gas station convenience store and geared up a bit for the weather.

Gratefully, the wind shifted completely in our favor at about mile 30 and what had been a challenging crosswind then became the tailwind we had all been dreaming of for the past week or so.

As mentioned, we had all set the goal of 78 miles for the day and had wrapped our minds around achieving that goal which would have put us into Sheridan Lake, CO and given our experience of the past few days we were hoping to be there by noon at the latest. Sheridan Lake has a Bible Church which hosts cyclists and this is where we had planned to spend the night. Well, since the wind gods decided not to punish us today we actually got into Sheridan Lake around 9:15am. We decided to make the most of our early arrival and purchased sandwiches from a local deli and took them to the Bible Church to eat an early lunch (we did get up at 0300 after all!). Here we met the pastor and were blown away by how nice the place was…see inset picture.

So, since it was so early and the wind direction  remained in our favor, we made the team decision to push on to Eads, CO which is another 28 miles past Sheridan Lake putting our day’s total mileage at 104 miles which we completed by 1pm today!!!!! YES, we just completed our first 100+ mile day and are so thrilled with our accomplishment! AND…we’re now in Colorado and bidding adieu to Kansas. Much love and appreciation to all the folks we bumped into while in Kansas and a special thanks to Deanna Jensen at Cake Batter Batter and to the amazing bicycle mechanics at the Hutchinson, KS Harley’s Bike shop!

We’re super excited to enter into Colorado and looking forward to meeting folks here as we journey from the plains to the foothills and finally the Rocky Mountains.