Happy Birthday Christina! And welcome back to the USA!
And now to the bicycle trip...
We spent much of the morning working on the Raleigh. Our bikes fell over late yesterday and afterwards my front brake was making a racket. After much perusal, we realized the disc brake had bent a little. Ahh! After a wee bit of panicing and calling bike shops in the surrounding area, we realized we could fix it well enough. With some pliers, a rag, and patience, Chris bent the disc back into shape. Yay! We put the bike back together, packed up and headed out the door. McPherson was a very pretty town. We only saw the edge of the city yesterday, but today we biked through its center. Tall, old oak trees and stately brick homes lined the roads, complete with lush lawns and sidewalks. There was a gentle breeze drifting through the streets, little did we know it was just a hint of the wind we would find once we were left the shelter of the city.
As the title implies, we didn't have a very fast bicycling day today. There were 10+ mph winds from the East with gusts up to 25 mph just trying to blow us back to McPherson. It was mentally exhausting to be pedaling so hard and not traveling very fast. We took turns leading and blocking the wind, and trying to distract ourselves from thinking about our speed.
It was a pretty day though, and we biked through agricultural fields and saw lots of cattle. A typical day in Kansas :) The one good thing about the wind is that it kept us a little bit cooler, drying all the sweat as soon as it formed!
We realized it wasn't going to be a high mileage day and that tomorrow was supposed to have more favorable winds. So we decided to stop early and enjoy a campsite on the nearby reservoir as opposed to pushing on any farther. We called the park and found out there were grills.... Hmm... If we were stopping early, we might as well enjoy ourselves! We bought cheeseburger-making staples and headed over to the park with renewed vigor!
One minute we were biking along a highway, surrounded by shoulder-high corn stalks and then we came over a ridge and saw a great expanse of water! It was stunning. Biking or driving along the main road you'd never even know there was a big lake 1/4 mile to the north.
The road to the campground went right over the Marion Dam:
We picked out a tent site right on the lake.
We didn't touch the water due to a sever algae bloom, but the idea of swimming was definitely an enticing thought.
Chris was in charge of cooking our burgers:
And I was in charge of burger fixings: toasted onion rolls, fresh onions, and American cheese. They were delicious.
Chris took a nice shower using the Ortlieb water bag with a shower head attachment. The bag holds 4L of water and when hung from a tree branch can create a very refreshing shower.
It was a wonderful evening and with the shade and light breeze we stayed reasonably cool (or at least not hot). We watched the sun set over the lake, an end to a very nice day despite only covering 36 miles.
Location:McPherson, KS to Marion, KS
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