Another day in paradise. We got the full Kansas. Miles and miles of never-ending straight-aways, strong winds coming off the plains and lots of agriculture. Our route took us through the southern part of the state.Day 4

Saturday, September 6, 2003

375 Miles

1377 Total Miles

Wellington, Kansas to Lamar, Colorado

Another day in paradise. We got the full Kansas. Miles and miles of never-ending straight-aways, strong winds coming off the plains and lots of agriculture. Our route took us through the southern part of the state. By sticking to secondary roads, we see a lot of small towns. And again, lots of agriculture.

Is this Kansas or North Dakota?

You may not notice it while traveling in a car, but while on a motorcycle being downwind from a huge cattle feed lot is a not a good thing.

Bo flees the feed lot smell

Kansas farms are incredibly big - a house every five miles or so with massive fields spreading out in every direction.

Our travels took us by Carrie Nation's home, the Dalton Gang hideout and onto the Santa Fe Trail.

The Dalton Gang Hideout Museum is in Meade, Kansas. Susan, who runs the museum, was glad to see us. She enthusiastically detailed the life and final days of the Dalton Gang. I think we were her only visitors of the day. She mentioned that Meade had lost a lot of population lately. We hear that in almost every small town we pass through.

Susan loved telling Bill about the Dalton Gang

In Ulysses, Kansas, a fellow named Tim told us that water rights are the big issue on the Kansas/Colorado border. Tim lived in Clarksville, Tennessee, for eight years. He likes Kansas but misses Tennessee.

We celebrated our exit from Kansas with a soft drink at another convenience store. In many ways, our trip from Tennessee to Colorado has really been a c-store tour of Tennessee, Missouri and Kansas. We stop about every 90 minutes for gas or a pit stop. The coffee varies in quality quite a bit.

This is physically much harder than we imagined...plenty of sore muscles and newly discovered aches and pains. Ibuprofen resides in the tankbag now. We stayed in the Cow Palace Motel in Lamra Saturday night just because they had a hot tub. It was great this morning!

Day 5 will take us from Lamar to Pueblo, Colorado. It's only about 150 miles. We're tired and need a short day. It looks like another day in the rain.

By the way, the photo yesterday of the luggage was not a joke. That pile of luggage is really piled on our bikes every day and then shlepped cross-country.