This morning started with a clear, blue sky.  After 20 miles, we took our first break in Rosalia and the clouds rolled in while we rested.

 On our way to Cassoday, we fought a steady, northerly headwind.

In town, we stopped at the Country Store for coffee and homemade cinnamon buns.

At the store we met two brothers, Grant and Walker.  They are from Chico, California and will follow the TransAm to Virginia.  Unfortunately, the tire pump they brought along had ruined a few tube valves for Walker, so he had been fighting a slowly leaking tire for quite a while. Their plan was to buy a new pump at the next bike shop, but that was a day or so ahead. Before leaving, we lent them ours to inflate a new tube in his tire.  Hopefully that gets them by until the next bike shop.  Good luck, guys!

Later in the day, we helped another turtle across the road.  This was a feisty little guy, and he peed while being carried across the road.  Rachel thinks it was because he was afraid of heights.

The rain finally came at 1PM.  We took shelter under a perfectly placed pavilion while putting rain covers on and having a snack.

We’ve been  fortunate so far with regard to the heat in Kansas, but we plan to continue getting up very early to do most of our riding before the worst heat of the day.

So far, all of the cyclists that we have met traveling east through Kansas have been very anxious to get to Missouri.  This was funny to us because we were so happy to have finally made it here!  It must be true, the grass is always greener on the other side.

The rain continued for part of the ride into Newton, but the heaviest held off until after we arrived at the Newton Bike Shop, where we were spending the night (they run a Hostel for touring cyclists).

We had read and heard about this shop before, so it was a lot of fun to finally experience it for ourselves.

They offer beds, showers, laundry, WiFi, a full kitchen, free beer, access to the mechanic’s tools (after hours), and even an arcade game machine with a huge assortment of classic games for free!

 We opted to have them clean our bikes while and they also replaced my wet and torn bar tape, with some new baby blue cork tape!

Another group of tourers who spent the night at the bike shop with us was two girls from Norway, named Jenny and Lisa, who are headed west as well.  It was very exciting for us because we had been seeing their names in guest books since Kentucky.  It was really fun to have finally caught up to meet them!

After settling down and getting cleaned up, we were joined by Rachel’s relatives, Becky, Nick, Maggie, and Maggie’s daughter, Adelia. They treated us to dinner at Reba’s Restaurant.  It was so great to meet all of you, and dinner was fantastic! Thank you all so much for making the trip up from Wichita to come see us!

After dinner, we returned to the bike shop, where most of the other tourers had already turned in for the night.  We indulged in some candy (which tourers pay for via the tip jar after hours), spent some time working on our bikes, and then got to sleep on our futon.

Thank you so much to the staff at the bike shop; we love what you are doing and hope to return some day!

Trip stats, to date (Day 47)

• Eureka, KS to Newton, KS
• Daily mileage: 75.5mi;  Trip total to date: 2,923.6mi
• Daily riding time: 5hr 45min;  Trip total time: 254hr 07min
• Daily ascent: 1,504ft;  Trip total ascent: 149,319ft
• Flat tires: Rachel – 1; Chris – 0