Burn, Baby Burn...

Not to worry the title doesn't mean lil foot and I have sun burn, just that the heat wave continues...
Last night I definitely got some much needed sleep while lil foot still stayed up a bit part, but she doesn't seem to require as much sleep for some reason, what a freak! Any way we decided to sleep in and only do 50 miles today so lil foot could give her legs a break from the sun and so I could sleep. This was a great idea but the problem was we didn't have the wind on our team today. Instead of cruising through our ride, we battled cross and head winds. Starting around 9am didn't help much either, it was already 94 degrees out and going up to 104 - great.
In the morning we were able to load up our bottles with ice water and gatorade from the fire house, unfortunately the ice part didn't last all too long. After 30 miles we went through Buhler thinking there was a store or gas station or anywhere to get more cold water, instead we found out the closest place w as 12 miles south. Oh man. An older man was the one who gave us that bad news but turned things around when he offered to help us out, he brought us out a pitcher of ice water before going on is way, also offered us to sit on the chairs by his front door in the shade if we needed to! The Kansas hospitality continued and we were lucky it did.
We took a 15 20 minute break then prepared for our 20 miles to Nickerson. Before I forget let me tell you about our lovely getups today... I am wearing two pairs of bike shorts because the padding on my shorts are almost none existent, while lil foot is wearing bike shorts under another pair of casual shorts to protect her thighs from more sun exposure. Also last night we were able to do laundry and a towel was washed with our clothes that had grease on it, that grease is now on other clothes adding to our hobo look. I must say we look lovely right now! Haha.
Back to the biking.... We started up again and found ourselves at a closed road, so we checked out Google maps and found an alternate route. That route included a mile ride on a DIRT road, more like a ride/drag because there were some spots that were impossible to ride through. Now with a layer of dirt mixed with sweat and sun block woo over ourselves we found another dirt road ahead of us. Thanks Google maps. We noticed a new highway under construction so we push our bikes up to that and began to ride back to the route we needed to be on. It was great to be on that, no traffic and it wasn't dirt. This whole process added about 2 miles but 20 minutes to our ride because of the damn dirt. Once we were back on track it was smooth sailing from there.
The wind was only a cross wind now and the sun was getting stronger, this motivated us to haul ass even more. As we continued a.cyclist going east was approaching, he stopped to chat and take a picture but lil foot was good about keeping the convo short since this guy seemed he would have gone on forever. Good luck to that guy, forgot his name, he started out on a tandem bike with his wife but now was riding solo.
Only 8 miles to go! We pulled over so lil foot could take off her outer shorts layer, then we really booked it! We did our last 8 miles in about 30-35 minutes! Unfortunately Nickerson isn't all too much of a town. The library and most shops are closed since its Sunday, but we found a gas station to set up shop in for a while in the ac. Tonight we will be camping in the city park, but with any luck we will look pathetic enough to someone to get a pity invite to a house! I honestly have no shame so I have been trying to chat it up with anyone and everyone who passes us just hoping for that invite. As of now we haven't even come close to an offer. Pooh. I will not give up though!

The English guys also made it to Nickerson, but are staying at the Animal Farm B&B, so we won't see them until tomorrow on the road when they come flying past us. Nina on the other hand has gone a bit off route. She insisted on going to some galaxy show about 6 miles out of the way (each way) and invited us to join, but we declined and opted to get the riding done with early, I think we chose the better option because it is now 104 and its 6pm so I would not want to be riding my bike right now. Not sure if she'll make it to the city park to join us tonight, if not we may not see her the rest of the trip. Just in case... Good luck Nina and enjoy the site seeing!

Considering we wont be escaping the heat for a while we aimll continue to attempt early starts. Although I love the flatness of this state, the heat is really getting to our heads and it makes us a hit cranky so bring on the Rockies!
Our next rest day is planned for Telluride Colorado which we've heard is beautiful, then after that we head into the desert for a few days before hopefully meeting some people around the Grand Canyon!

Tomorrow will be the last day of our 7th week and we will be at about 2750 miles! We are sure looking foward to the rest of our trip, with the hard mountains, heat of Kansas, dogs of Kentucky and home of Pop Eye behind us we have amazing sites ahead.

It's about 6:15 pm here now, so off to the city park to set up camp, cross your fingers for a nice stranger to take us home with them! No dirty jokes people this is a family friendly blog hahahahahaha!!!!

Tata for now.

The one and only,
Sasq

Ps. In case you were worried about my tushy, don't. My lovely num will be mailing me two new pairs of shorts tomorrow! Also lil foot's rash looks a little better and we will continue to keep her legs from the sun, no matter how ridiculous.she has to look!