Coming to you from a public library in Norton, Kansas, about 120 miles into the state:

Kansas has proven to be a lot nicer than eastern Colorado.  The towns here tend to actually have some amenities…always a lovely public park with bathrooms, water, and camping permitted. Often there’s even a store or two as well.

After leaving our camping spot behind the high school in Idalia and getting a VERY DISAPPOINTING breakfast, we biked on to St. Francis, crossing into Kansas and the central time zone. 

St. Francis was cute…we ate ice cream and burgers while marveling over the “Signs of the Times - Will The Church Survive!?” (a CRAZY religious magazine) and took a nap in the park after gathering some provisions. 

We biked on to Bird City, Kansas, and popped into Big Ed’s steakhouse for a drink.  We took the luckiest seat in the house, next to our new friend Gerold.  Gerold offered to show us where to camp in Bird City’s very nice park, and to let us shower at his house.  Due to an encroaching storm, that quickly changed to him offering us a bed in his house. As we watched the news reports of a huge storm and tornado entering the county we shared one Big Ed’s famous steaks Gerold convinced us to try, which proved to be a great choice.  

We watched the storm pass over from the safty of Gerolds porch.  It was really lucky that we didn’t have to camp, as golf-ball sized hail was falling and there was a ton of lightening. 

Gerold (and his dog Buddy), sent us off with bellies full of coffee.  We took some brief snack stops, but pretty much biked straight the 55 miles to Oberlin, KS.  It was really hot out (96 degrees), and we got there in pretty much the hottest part of the day.  Camping wasn’t sounding to appealing in the heat, especially as another thunderstorm was predicted.  We decided to treat ourselves to a hotel room at the Landmark Inn, a really nice bed and breakfast in an old converted bank building.

We made dinner on the porch of the inn, used the sauna, got ourselves some beer, and generally had a very relaxing, restorative night. On to Phillipsburg!