Day total 62
Trip total 2,000
We left the ranch and entered Kansas today, on the way we had the good fortune of having lunch with Eric's generous parents. His mother is a sweet German woman originally from Austria and what is now the Check Republic her husband Roger, grew up in Milwaukie. She cooked us a calorie sustaining breakfast of viennese pancakes with blueberries they picked themselves and a loaded omlette with sausage, bacon and potatoes. We piles our plates, but passed on the champagne to be somewhat abstimious.
It was pretty intense. Although, Nik and I have both lost some weight by basically eating everything we can get our hands on (and more often than not is generously offered). I do find myself missing eating light foods and am basically craving salad all the time, but that will probably be a craving I will have to cater to after Kansas City BBQ.
Substancially fueled, we hopped back on our bicycles to finish up the short day of biking. Our first stop in Kansas City, well REI of course. I told Nik considering the ridiculous amount of time we spend at REI in Boston it's a good thing we biked 2,000 miles to go to one in the middle of the country. But Nik's sleeping pad has punctuated and we thought their return policy would let him swapping his old for a new one. In the end not the case.
We pulled out of the parking lot and I got my fourth flat tire of the trip (but first one on my front tire, usually they happen on your back tire because that is where the majority of your weight sits). Not so much a flat as my front tire just gave way, which is sort of expected when you have biked 2,000 miles on it over all kinds of terrain with weight. Sometimes I look at our bikes and am amazed that such simple machines have gotten as so far.
Anyway, flats are always frustrating (even when they are justified) and so is traffic (even when expected), and we spent the afternoon dealing with both, so by the time we got to John (father of my good frind from college also named John) and his wife Peggy's house in Overland Park Kansas Nik was cranky (anyone that knows Nik knows what a rare and therefore significant occurance this is).
We pulled up to the driveway (after battling what we call suburbia hell, where no road goes straight through so you are forced to follow a maze like pattern to reach your destination), sweaty and cranky. Peggy jumped out to greet us "you made it!" and welcomes us in as If we were her long lost children.
Peggy and John (who so far are my evidence that people in the Midwest are just as kind and easy going as everyone says they are), took us to a family party at her sister's house a few blocks away. The characters we met and the events and booze that followed were uncannily similar to happy hour in Lockhart; overly generous people who are both interesting and interested, lawn games and some.very very good food (tamales) and craft beer (Boulevard). Needless to day Nik's mood was lifted.
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