People always ask me what my favorite day of the trip has been so far and I never have an answer. Typically that's because most days have lots of highs and lows. However, I can definitively say that today was the best day of the trip thus far because there were absolutely no low moments! None! Our 67-mile ride between Beloit, KS and Red Cloud, NE was flawless.
To preface, Kansas in general is not flat, and definitely not boring to look at, contrary to popular belief. I suppose it might be if you were driving, but biking through Kansas has been absolutely wonderful; today in particular. The vast, hilly farm lands offer enough visual variety and the terrain keeps the biking interesting, without being too strenuous. In short, we LOVE Kansas.
So anyway, here's the play-by-play of the best day to date (although not sure how long this will last since we're only a couple days from Colorado!):
We woke up and we could actually feel cool air! A foreign concept given the heat wave of the past several days. It made for a refreshing start to the morning. Better yet, we turned on to our first big mileage road of the day (23 miles) and there was not only a beautiful sunrise behind us, but also a massive tailwind! It was so strong that we were averaging around 20 mph on a very slight incline without exerting a tremendous amount of effort.
By mile 20 we reached our first major roadside attraction: the worlds largest ball of twine! Although mildly anticlimactic, we still had fun climbing on it (apparently frowned upon) and taking pictures - soaking in our inner tourist selves.
Shortly after the twine we made our turn to head north towards Nebraska. Our lovely tailwind then turned into a less helpful crosswind. We made it about ten miles before we decided to take a break at a good-looking hay bale. We stayed there for an embarrassingly long time, turning our snack break into a full on photo shoot.
We only had 15 miles until lunch, but in trend with the day, more amazing things happened. As we were biking up a slight hill we saw three horses running along the adjacent fields, getting closer to the roadside fence. It was a majestic sight. We decided to take a break to say hello and just fell in love with these horses. We even named them: Speckles, Brown Bear, and Bruno Alfalfa. We fed them some grass and took a few selfies, but eventually we had to say our goodbyes.
Our lunch location today was also at a pretty cool spot: the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states! It felt like such an accomplishment to make it to this point. We're now halfway through the trip in terms of days, and will hit 2,000 miles in the next couple rides!
After lunch we only had 17 miles till we reached Red Cloud, and about 10 miles till the Nebraska state line. Although we all suffered slightly from the dreaded lunch legs, the afternoon went by quickly and we were happy to see the Nebraska state line sign! (Even though that meant leaving our beloved Kansas).
Red Cloud itself was also a pleasant surprise. It's a tiny town with a population of about 1,000, but it still had great amenities. We basically took over the main park, setting up hammocks on the gazebo, having a bike cleaning party, and just sipping on some beers we bought at the local general store. There was only a couple blocks of downtown area, but it had everything we needed. And by that I mean it had ice cream...which we went back to for seconds, unsurprisingly.