Another rest day. It's amazing how fast the days go by, resting or riding. The weather has toned down a bit, and the wind direction has changed. For the first time since I've hit Kansas the wind is coming from the NNW instead of the SSW, and the temperature is only 88 degrees, still humid. Here's hoping that the temperature change sticks for a while.
I started the day with a visit to Harley's Cycle Supply here in Hutchinson. I got my first flat of the trip yesterday - picked up a thorn in one of the trailer tires. I don't know why, but I could not get the tire off of the rim. That's the first time that has happened to me. It wasn't a big deal because it was the trailer (a low pressure tire with not a great deal of weight on it) and not the bike (a higher pressure tire with more weight on it). Actually, if it had been the bike I would have been able to change the tire - I've changed bike tires many times over the years... I was able to get by yesterday by stopping to put more air in the trailer tire every hour or two. Annoying, but not a big deal. What was more annoying to me was not being able to get the tire off! Dave at Harley's helped me out. He also put Slime (for you non-bikers, it's a liquid that helps seal punctures) in both trailer tire / tubes, and I bought a different set of tire levers that hopefully will work better than the set I was carrying. It gave me an excuse (as if I needed one) to stop and chat with the folks at the bike shop. Dave said he saw me ride up Main Street yesterday and wondered if I was riding cross-country. He thought I was because of the trailer and panniers, but he'd never seen anyone do the trip on a Bike Friday before. I'm not the first, but maybe the others didn't stop here. I asked if there had been quite a few cyclists passing through here this summer. He said there had been a number, but they (we) started coming through later in the season than usual, and that he thought that the numbers were down. He also said he's seen fewer foreign cyclists this year. Interesting.
I came back to the hotel to drop off the trailer, and to have a snack - eating again! I met some of the baseball families who are in town for the World Series. Marilyn asked me if I was riding across the state. Once I told her that I was riding across the country that started a longer conversation, so we talked for a bit. Then I headed to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. I saw the Space Station film at the Omni theatre. It was really impressive. If you have a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. I went through the museum too, which traces the history of space flight from the German V1 and V2 rockets in World War II through the US - Soviet space race to the present and includes the most significant collection of space artifacts outside of the Smithsonian. It was definitely a good place to visit.
When I sat down in the theater, a couple of boys were looking at me. I said "oops, I guess I should take my helmet off", and they said that they had just seen me talking to their mom back at the hotel, and expressed surprise that I made it to the museum so fast. It was only a couple of miles away, and when you factor in the stop lights on the way, it probably didn't take me much longer to get there than it took them.
After I finished my tour of the museum I wandered into the gift shop. I met Marilyn there again and ended up talking to her and several other moms and kids from Omaha. She asked me if I'd be willing to talk to their boys - the baseball team - back at the hotel. You know me, I love sharing my trip and talking about biking, so of course I agreed. We me in the lobby at 5, and I talked to the group before their next World Series game. Marilyn and Jan and Faye stayed and talked some more after the kids headed out. That was a lot of fun. Marilyn teaches American History, and she said she's going to have her class follow my progress when they get back to school in mid-August.
