Today we started in Ness city, KS. We biked continuously from 330am to 730am to some other small town, Rush Center, KS. When we arrived to Rush Center, all we wanted was food and some rest. To ensure that we left early, we didn't eat breakfast, so we were very hungry.
When we arrived to Rush Center, we were extremely tired. I was just about falling asleep on my bicycle. The night before, we didn't get much sleep and it was an especially long and tiring day.  We had arrived at Ness City at 7pm. There, we met up with 5 other bikers. In the excitement of being amongst so many other bikers, we stayed up a bit too late. We didn't get to bed until 10pm. We woke up at 230am, so it wasn't enough rest. Even though we went to bed, it felt hot out and we couldn't really fall asleep for quite some time. Then, after Kayla and I went to sleep, some of the other bikers hopped over a fence and went in a pool. They got way less sleep than we did, and it showed in the morning.

Anyway, we were sleepy, hungry, and some of us grumpy. At Rush Center, some were thinking of stopping for the day. Unfortunately Kayla and I needed to cover over a hundred miles again, because we needed to get somewhere from where we could take some other type of transportation to Michigan, so we didn't have the luxury of being able to stop for the day.

 So, here is something interesting that happened on that early morning day. I think Kayla found it extremely amusing. On the way to Rush Center I ran over a rock. I had ran over many rocks before but not like this. I had hit pot holes and they shook up my bike but not like this. I had worried about my tires before but not like this.  I had just put new tires on my bike a couple of weeks ago, so I didn't think that much could go wrong. How I was wrong. My bike felt "funny" after I ran ovver that tiny rock. When I took a closer look, my tire had a bulge. Riding my bike began to feel as if though I was riding on uneven ground. But I went on.....(spoiler alert-something happens later with my tire)




So, a lot of stuff was happening. We were hungry, tired, one person really needed to use the bathroom, and my bike felt "funny". Then we arrived to Rush Center. With a name like "Rush Center", we figured the place HAD to have stores. We were excited. We rode into town and our excitement quickly turned to disappointment when we saw that nothing was open, not even a bathroom. We felt let down, and in our grogginess we sat outside of a liquor store because we were sleepy, tired, and because we though it might have had some bathrooms or juice, something, oh and also because it had shade.
It was 730am, and we waited for the gas station to open at 8. When we were finally let into the gas station, we realized that they only had a bathroom and a vending machine. Still hungry, we headed back to our shade outside of the liquor store, we napped outside the liquor store and we waited for something else to open. Their restaurant would open at 10.

After we ate, we sadly  departed from John. After looking at routes and different means of transportation, Kayla and I decided to head 30 miles north from Rush Center to the town of Hays were maybe we could catch a Greyhound bus, maybe. Luckily, as we headed to Hays. The winds were strong and were coming from the south, so the ride felt extremely easy, and we were going fast. The station was at the north end of the town and halfway through town tire felt "funnier". Then, it felt a bit "funnier" still. It turns out that the bulge in my tire had now turned into a hole. I rode as far as I could on my bike but eventually the hole grew so big that too much of my inner tube was sticking out, and I couldn't ride it anymore. I walked my bike the last two miles to the Greyhound station.

We arrived at the stop, eventually.  We waited for the bus to arrived and when it arrived we were denied seats at the because our bikes were a big inconvenience. Oh well, they had a broken AC, so we wouldn't have wanted to ride their bus, anyway.

So, since the bus was not going to work out, searched some more routes and we came up with a new plan: the new plan was to make it to Kansas City to catch the train, Amtrak. Kansas City was hundreds of miles away so we didn't know quite how we would get there but, luckily, we met Josh who took us 50 miles closer to our destination, to Selina, KS.  At Selina, we lingered at the gas station for a bit. Then, once again, we were fortunate to strike up some more good luck when we met John Pt 2 who gave us a ride to Topeka, KS.  We rested at a motel and we tried to fit Kayla's spare tire onto my bike. It was a fail.

Thanks, Josh and John Pt 2.




Our total mileage on my odometer is 1860 so far.