Going from Mankato Kansas to Franklin Nebraska. Another State in the bag! 66 miles and 1856 ft of elevation gain. Averaged 13 mph, the wind was MUCH better! Still a headwind, but relatively mild, 5-10 mph coming from the West/Northwest. A beautiful sunny day, starting off in the 50s and climbing to the 70s in the afternoon. Deb and I didn’t take the normal route as the other members of the group because we wanted to visit the geographic center of the 48 states which was off route by 20 miles or so. It is located 2 miles North of Lebanon Kansas. It was cool- no one was there except two guys changing the flags on the monument. Apparently the Kansas winds wreak havoc on flags! We experienced that first hand yesterday! It was a beautiful ride. After entering Nebraska about 10 miles North of the geographic center monument, there was a historical marker, marking a section of the prairie that was kept basically as it was since the white man made an appearance out here. It was beautiful flat, gently rolling prairie land for as far as the eye could see, 360 degrees. One can only imagine what it looked like when there were millions of buffalo roaming the prairies. It was really quite breathtaking. It is nice riding a bike out here- not much traffic although there are some big trucks that roll by at 70 mph, fortunately giving us bikers plenty of room as we ride on the road to the right, there not being any shoulder. Occasionally you will get the odd truck that zooms by with feet to spare, but that is rare, people are pretty respectful of bikers and giving them plenty of room when they are riding on the road. I ate lunch at Red Cloud, back on the original route, at a great little place called the Bowling Alley Bar and Grill (it is actually a bowling alley) and had a fish and chips. Caught up with the rest of the group a short way after Red Cloud and rode in to camp together with them. Another nice city park where we get to use the showers attached to the pool. Pools are not open until Memorial Day, hopefully after next week we will be able to not only use the showers, but the pool as well. Hot water had unfortunately not been turned on, so had a cold shower- but it felt great!!
Chet continues to have issues with flats- he had another flat 10 miles into the ride. And Tom took a fall when he bumped wheels with Terence, but is OK with minor scratches. Terence has recovered from his stomach ailment and did the whole ride today. The group continues to get stronger as we get into the ride. A month already has gone by! Hard to believe we are in Nebraska already- seems like just recently we were in DC starting out. Wow.
Here are the RidewithGPS stats:
Biking across the USA with Mike 
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