Do you remember this Stuart?

The Mustard Seed restaurant in Buhlen, zomewhere in the middle of Kansas.

Day 44 Lahned to Ness City

Last night we had stormy weather with winds gusting up to 50mph and tbunder and ligbtning so most of us were tucked up in our tents at 8 30 just before the fun started. The local police phoned and told us that we could take refuge in tbe nearby scout hut but I was keen to find out just how good my new tent stood up to the conditions. And it performed admirably with no leaks anywhere. So the MSR Hubba  Hubba Green gets my vote. A great versatile tent.
The notorious Kansas wind has been kind to us so far with tail and side winds and today was no exception.  Its flat as far as the eye can see but there is a certain tranquility about riding across the plains, disturbed only when the huge trucks come thundering past, which they do on a fairly regular basis.
Early morning we stopped by the historical site of Fort Lahned, famous for its Santa Fe trail connections and for lunch I had the best hamburger yet but sadly no pie today.

Miles Today 67
Total          2129

Day 42 - Newton to Sterling (guest blogger Hadley)

After dinner, Rob, Greg and I biked into town and settled in at the local pizza joint.  Rob

whipped out his dorkulator and we started in on a very focused collaborative blog post composition session.  We wrote.  We laughed.  We cried (well, I did anyway - from laughter).  Greg drank at least 5 jumbo refills of pop.  Three hours later, we emerged from the restaurant... the blog post had been written!  It was epic, hilarous and touching. 

The next day, Rob woke up and turned on his dorkulator (in order to post our blog entry) and was dismayed to find that THE BLOG POST HAD MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED!!!  Yes... it was gone.

It's taken us two days to recover from the loss.  Only now am I able to muster up the energy to write a summary of the post.  What follows is a sadly abbreviated version of our masterpiece.  Read it and imagine something much longer and thousands of times wittier & more touching and you will get a sense of what we originally wrote.

1. Rob slept in.
2. Rob caught up with me & Greg 12 miles out of Newton.
3. We sat around ate chips and talked about aliens.  For approximately two hours.
4. We sat around and ate donuts and made plans for a scavenger hunt.  For about one hour.
5. We rode our bikes.
6. We met a really charming and sweet young girl (Paige) who introduced us to her dog Baxter, took me for a bike ride around her neighborhood, and gave us big hugs when we said bye.
7. We met Paige's grandpa, who showed us his red Model A Ford with a chevy 327 small block, aspirated 620 horsepower.  It was a chopped & channeled hot rod that he'd built.  It was a thing of beauty.
8. We rode our bikes some more.  Rob's cycle computer showed that he had pedalled 2000 miles so far on this trip.

And that is that. 

Miles Today 59
Total        2008