Day 1: Short & Sweet


Flint Hills Trail from Admire to Osage City

We have had a very special week at the beautiful Frank & Angela Carter farm in Lecompton, Kansas.  Frank (Diane’s brother) and Angela hosted a reunion for the Carter siblings and their spouses and offspring, where we were wined and dined in a most spectacular fashion, with lots of time for family fun.  

Today Frank drove us down to Admire where we launched our first day’s ride on the Flint Hills Nature Trail.  The ride was intentionally short—a shake-down day for our reassembled bikes (after their flight from Seatac to Kansas City) and for our bodies (which for the last week have been overfed and under-exercised).

We did fine on the ride.  Plus, the trail was in fairly good condition.  There were a few scattered areas of ballast, sand, mud, and water, but all easily traversable with no need to dismount.  Most of this section of the trail was canopied by large shady trees, and the southwesterly wind was off our right shoulder as we biked eastward. 

Wildlife sightings included squirrel, snake, dragon flies, butterflies, and lots of birds.  We did not encounter other cyclists, but did meet a five-man work crew and their equipment as they were changing the decking on one of the trestles.  One person said for our safety they could not let us through, but Rob said we needed to go through, and so we did without incident.

We had thought we would have a 22-mile ride today, but it turned out to be only 18 (including our side trip to the grocery store for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s snacks.  We are staying at The Koch House, an Airbnb just off the trail; it is a great place to stay for bicyclists and fairly well stocked for breakfast which we make ourselves.

When we planned this week-long ride, and up until today, the forecast was for pretty good weather, with the possibility of some rain on Friday.  Now we expect to ride the 32 miles from Osage City to Ottawa in the rain.  Unfortunately, it does not look like the forecast for the rest of the week is much better.  Oh well, time will tell.

Dry for now in Osage City,
Diane & Rob

Pictures from Day 1 ride.






















Smile of the Day. (FYI, some of the trestles on this part of trail do not have railing.)
And we close with this striking "art pic" by Diane.


































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