Alexander, KS to Dighton, KS Day 23

Woohoo it's my birthday! We woke up and started packing up camp, which included destaking the tent.  While we were brushing our teeth, in what we later learned was the "million dollar rest stop of Kansas" our tent decided to blow away. But don't worry, I saved the day. I am amazing. 

We got going, and there was a STRONG headwind straight in our faces... a huge change from yesterday, and we felt it. We slowed way down, and at points were going a third as fast as the day before.. Ugh! 

Not too far down the road in the next town we ran into our first group of cyclists headed east on the Trans-Am route (the route we're now on headed west). They were cool. We exchanged a couple stories and advice about good places to stay and where to steer clear of. It's always great running into other crazy cyclists. 

And then we got some ice cream for my birthday!! WOOHOO ICE CREAM BIRTHDAY!!! And then we went down the road and ate at the Cactus Cafe. Somebody told us it was good. But it wasn't... And the lady there was a little rude. But my burger was a lot better than Alec's salmon. We joked about how to get salmon to where we were it'd have to travel for WEEKS and how you could walk outside, point to a cow, and say that's the one I want for my burger. There are SO many cows. More cows than people by probably more than 10 fold. 

We also learned that Kansas is ALL uphill. A very slight uphill -- at the Kansas/Missouri border it's elevation 1300 about and at the Colorado boarder it's about 4000. So overall we're going uphill but it's SO flat and repetitive. I still think it's beautiful though. 

Also, we have observed that everything in Kansas goes in circles... we'e seen flies buzzing around in circles, cows walking in circles, tornados, and this horse (that this guy was taking in small circles literally right next to the highway!)

Kansas is odd!

We continuted into my Happy Birthday Headwind, and a cop pulled over in front of us 10 miles out of the next town. He told us there were some serious storms coming, which was kind of annoying because we hadn't gotten too far at all, but we decided to call it a day in the next town, Dighton. So we got finished about 3:45 which was nice. And I really wanted to get in the cop truck, because I didn't know those existed.. It was great!

We finally got into Dighton, and picked up some food at the gas station -- the only one in town and the only place you could buy any food. The closest sit down restaurant was an hour drive away and it was Applebee's!! We were definitely in the middle of nowhere. But the gas station had some pretty good stuff. We bought macaroni to make in the hotel room and I had a super yummy mango lemonade, and I liked the top :)

And then Alec surprised me with cupcakes!! He had talked to the couple that ran the motel we were staying at to ask if there was any candles or anything that he could borrow for my birthday, and they offered to make cupcakes! So nice. And very sweet of Alec. He surprised me with them and sang me happy birthday -- it was great!!

(A bit blurry... But he delivered me the cupcakes while I was relaxing in bed!)

So my birthday was wonderful, though a little windy and stormy! And we slept well in the motel for the night. 

Daily stats:

Mileage: 51.2

Average speed: 8.41

Elevation gain: 1106

Haiku:

Wind blows the wrong way,

Things here always do circles,

What is up with that.