The first flat day of riding and after massive thunderstorms last night the morning temperature was nice and cool. Bliss. Not much to see today apart from corn and wheat and that's the way it's going to be for the next couple of weeks. The town of Girard that we pazzed througn today had an interesting Vietnam war memorial with an original 'Huey' helicopter.
Miles today 64
Total 1802
Named after Octave Chanute who was involved in the first manned flight by the Orville brothers in 1903, a history project of mine that I recall from school days.
As you may know a couple of weeks ago there was a devastating tornado in Joplin Missouri that took over 150 lives and totally destroyed a huge part of the city. Today we are only 20 miles north of the disaster area and a couple of days ago Greg, Ellen, Kelly and myself responded to an advert for volunteers at the United Way Catholic relief centre in Joplin.
We received a positive response to do a 3 hour session at their emergency supply centre so we hired a car and drove down this morning. We were a little apprehensive az the consensus of other opinion was that Joplin had been inundated with volunteers and that we would be more of a hindrance than a help. Neverthelless we decided to go and assess the situation as we felt that the charity would have declined our applications had this been the case.
It turned out that our fears were unfounded, we were warmly received and each of us did 3 hours of useful work helping with the distribution of supplies to families who had lost their homes.
It was a very humbling experience but at the same time after seeing the devaztation here it made me feel very proud to be raising money for Shelterbox and even more determined to achieve my sponsorship target.
Today was our last day in Missouri and our last day in the hills for a couple of weeks before we hit tbe Rockies. Kansas, tbe breadbasket of America, with its endless flat plains awaits us, where buffalo used to roam, but now where the closest tbing to a buffalo is a John Deer tractor.
The day was a long 69 miles, temperatures back over 100F and an immediate wrong turn adding 7 miles to our day. Hivhlight of the day was lunch at Cookies pie shop in Golden City . We all had at least one piece of pie and some of us had rwo.Tomorrow is a rest day in Pittsburgh. Nothinv more needs to be said.
Total miles 76
Total 1738
The adornments relate to the fact that my North american friends think that I have a posh English accent despite my telling them that it's actually 'Soft Northern' !
Breakfast was moved to the more civilised time of 6 30AM today allowing the opportunity of a 1 hour lie in for those that appreciate the beneficial effect of sleep. Our daily weatherman Jack also promised us the comfort of lower tempetatures in the higb eigbties to ease our day. Alas the hills would still be in evidence.
So off we went with Kelly back in the fold , first stop being Mcdonalds 2 minutes down the road where we picked up Cathy, one of the in-betweeners who had chosen to ride with us today.
I cbose to give McD's a miss and had a cunning plan to ride ahead to the 14.6 mile stop and enjoy a longer first break. Unfortunately my slow early morning speed allowed the group to catch me up, thus thwarting my plan.
Today we did not save any turtles, we just rode our bikes in a neat and tidy formation to arrive at our campsite on time. We did however talk to the Amish, and to a local man who showed us a photograph tbat had been blown into his garden by the tornado that devastated Joplin a couple of weeks back. There is also the remote possibility that we may be able to help witb the relief effort at Joplin on our next layover day. We have put our names forward and are waitinv to hear if we can be of any use.
At the end of the day Greg and I took a detour onto the Frisco Highline trail. A 5 mile add on to our daily mileage but well worth it as being an old railway line it was flat and in the shade.
For this we were deemed to be a superior kind of Adventure Cyclist and presented with a special badge by Ellen.
Miles today 55
Total 1661
