A tailwind carried us into Rush Center this morning, and we played “I’m going on a picnic and bringing…”, as well as more 20 Questions.

There were no services in town, so we had a few of our own snacks at a picnic table and then continued onto KS-96W, which the route follows for 250 miles… *Yawn*

 In the first few miles on 96W, we saw our first tumbleweed!  By noon we logged 65 miles and it was very hot.  We resupplied at the Dollar General in Ness City then continued to the city park for lunch.

 We were torn about whether to take a long lunch break and continue to Dighton later in the day, or just stay put.  That turned out to be an easy decision, though, once we saw that the park had a pool and showers. This was the earliest we have settled at a campsite, which is great because we were both very tired after getting up so early the past few days and riding through plenty of heat, despite our best efforts.  We spent the afternoon relaxing in the pool, then had an early dinner and hoped that the heat and/or fireworks wouldn’t keep us from getting a good night’s rest.

  
Trip stats, to date (Day 49)

• Larned, KS to Ness City, KS
• Daily mileage: 65.2mi;  Trip total to date: 3,098.8mi
• Daily riding time: 4hr 50min;  Trip total time: 267hr 24min
• Daily ascent: 714ft;  Trip total ascent: 151,091ft
• Flat tires: Rachel – 1; Chris – 0