Eastern Kansas

We had a great day today! We rode to Chanute, Kansas, where we are staying at a lovely AirBnB. I want to live here. It’s a beautiful and modern tiny house that’s comfortable and has a wall of windows on one side overlooking a field, a pond, and an antique (maybe?) oil rig.

The ride today was really enjoyable. As we’ve gotten further east in Kansas the scenery has changed a lot. Now there are gently rolling hills dotted with trees. We also rode through Cross Timbers State Park, which has a big lake and lots of trees. The weather was good. Slight wind but not an inconvenience like yesterday.

After getting to Chanute and the wonderful AirBnB early this afternoon, we showered, did laundry, and then went to Walmart. In my normal life, I never shop at Walmart but on this trip it has become my favorite store. I’ve learned that I can always find something that’s vegan in the freezer aisle. Labeled as such and everything. At many of the grocery stores in the small towns we’ve been going through, it has typically been hard to find just normal food without cheese or meat on everything. So. Finally something good about Walmart?? After Walmart we stopped at the bottle shop, which had a surprisingly good selection of beer bottles. I got a bourbon barrel-aged stout from a Kansas City brewery.

Mike found a restaurant in Chanute that serves breakfast all day. Their menu has an omelette with the description ”For the vegan taste a two egg omelette made with your choice of …”. That word does not mean what they think it means. But there’s a Walmart in town!

Highlights

• we stopped for a snack in the town of Coyville. It has a population of 62. We passed two cars while we were riding and both drivers waved at us. While we were snacking on the side of the road in Coyville, we saw two other cars and both stopped so the driver could talk to us. They wanted to know where we were from, where we were headed, and how things were going. One woman jumped out of her car as soon as she parked and ran to the trunk to offer us bottles of water. She said she knows sometimes when traveling the local tap water can cause upset stomachs. It was just so lovely.
• I saw a really big turtle today. My first in the “not dead” category. We’ve passed a lot of fields with cows this trip, but today I saw baby cows for the first time. We also saw a coyote in the field behind our AirBnB.

Lowlights

• we were chased by a couple dogs. They weren’t very big but they were aggressive. I yelled at them and was able to outrun them. But then I kept yelling even after they gave up the chase. I did not feel bad for yelling. I did feel bad for Mike, though, because I knew he’d be passing by those riled up dogs less than a minute later. We were both unscathed.
• we maybe, MAYBE heard the coyote attack the neighbor’s dog. Unclear.

Julie’s food

• Breakfast: oatmeal, coffee
• First Snack: no cow bar
• Second Snack: Clif bar
• Third Snack: Clif bar
• Dinner: buffalo cauliflower wings, sweet and sour impossible pork and rice bowl

Stats

• Total distance: 60.04 miles
• Elevation gain: 1,390 feet
• Weather: dry, high of 77 degrees Fahrenheit