June 24, Day 24

June 24, Day 24
Garden City to Dodge City, KS
Mileage: 52
Temperature: Wonderful

Dear All,

Today was the day we needed. After two very tough ones, this was a blessing. Only 52 miles and good weather with only a modest breeze in the morning. We're back on track and the mental attitude is much improved after two very hard days.

Off this morning early so as to outsmart the KS winds, which are pretty crafty. As you can guess from the last two days, they tend to lull one into a false sense of security early in the morning when they are quite but then as the day goes on they get the last laugh. Not today. We beat 'em!! They even make signs about the winds. What the heck a “wind current” is we don't know but one has to be careful of them in this neck of the woods.

We left at 6:30 and put some serious distance between us and Garden City pretty early. Sue, a wonderful gal, had a flat, which John fixed in pretty quick order and then we were heading east again.

By the way, we forgot to tell you about our race yesterday. There we were pedaling along in the morning minding our own business when eight cows on the other side of the road started to gallop along side. Yup, we said gallop. We didn't know that cows could do that but there they were racing us down the road. These guy (or gals we didn't notice) can move right along. We're guessing that they were doing a good 15 mph for a 100 yards or so, but in the end it was man and his machine that won out.

On to today. We rode into a beautiful sunrise which the picture doesn't do justice to. It was really lovely. We've noticed however that as beautiful KS is in its own, the smell never seems to go away. It is as if God decided that this was the best place in the world to deposit all the manure he could find and let it be known that he found a lot of it. We passed by more cattle pens than you can imagine. We're guessing that the life expectancy of these animals is not terribly long.

About halfway into the ride we stopped at an historic area of the Santa Fe Trail. It was quite interesting. John noted that the description included the comment that many of the pioneers who settled in KS went absolutely bonkers (John's word not the word used in the marker) as a result of the constant wind. Makes sense to us.

As we entered Dodge City we came upon a bunch of guys “getting out of Dodge”. They waited long enough for a picture.

Dodge City itself was not all that interesting. There is a museum but it's pretty fake so we decided against going. Amy did, however, think that the stagecoach was pretty neat.

That was the day. It was really nice.

No WiFi tomorrow so we'll be off the air. Love your comments.

Take care and keep up the good vibes.

John and Amy