30.6 miles by bike, ~125 miles in Ken’s pickup, 2371 total (bicycle) miles
Yesterday in Marysville we had a team-talk. We had been alerted to an impending heat-dome and we were relatively close to my friend Ken’s house where we had intended to spend a couple of nights, resting and getting bikes serviced, etc. Ken had offered to pick us up within a couple hundred miles of his home. We decided to take him up on the offer and, hopefully, recuperate and service bikes during the worst of the heat.
So, we had a more leisurely start to the day than usual, and we set off east on Hwy 9 past many wind turbines, noting that they were all spinning.
We turned south, into the wind, on Hwy 99 at the small town of Frankfort…
… and rode on to the smaller, unincorporated, town of Blaine. There we collapsed in the shade of a tree beside the, very substantial and good looking, church.
While Steve was napping and I was chatting to my parents, Bob walked to this repair shop…
…and returned, excitedly, with a pre-made sandwich and a cold drink. Steve and I soon followed and made similar purchases. The proprietor was a very nice, talkative, older lady; transactions took a while.
At about the same time we got a text from Ken telling us he was 30 minutes from our intended meeting place. We were approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes from said meeting place!
After quickly renegotiating the pickup point, we made a mad dash 2 miles down the road to Pottawatomie County State Lake #1. Steve rolled in with a flat tire 😄, we didn’t bother fixing it.
We stripped the luggage from our bikes beside the lake, Ken arrived within 10 minutes and we gladly loaded the bikes.
In the next two and a half hours we covered three or more days of riding-distance and arrived at Ken’s with everything present and correct.
Before long we were unloaded, showered and dressed in clean clothes. Ken treated us to salmon and vegetables with rice. We gleefully put the dishes in the dishwasher.
It was a good day. Steve’s tire remains flat.
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