Day Twenty-five (74.6 miles, 1098.6 total): Bone Dry to Bone Yard

Ella shifts at the foot of my tent, rolling over and kicking her tiny little legs. Bill is shuffling around outside his tent. It's already pretty light out so I check my watch. 7:00AM. Oh man overslept again! I kick out of my sleeping back and Ella launches out of the bottom of the tent like a rocket! I barely have the zipper open before she is already wriggling through and running around the field. How she has so much energy I have no idea. I pull myself out of the yellow nylon coffin and pack up all the gear wet. No time for drying now!

Bill is ready to go, so he sets off to get coffee before we leave. Celia isn't even close to ready. I load my gear on the land yacht and set Ella, the furry captain, at the helm. I meet Bill at the Sonic and order myself a breakfast sandwich to nom on. While we are sitting and loading down on food, a woman comes up and introduces herself to us. Robyn Harvey, she just started a cycling hostel right in Eureka. This was the place the girls tried to tell us about, but they didn't say it was a hostel. The hostel she has set up is a full house with a washer/dryer, shower, bike shelter, and is set in a quiet neighborhood. Any future cyclists you can contact Robyn Harvey by call/text at: 620-750-0574.

Randy and Celia met up with us at the Sonic before we all set out for the day. Randy took the highway for a faster route and left our little group. Bill, Celia, and I stop at a gas station for water because the water at the park tasted kinda funny. Fully loaded to hydrate, we continue our quest for the Oasis in The Grass Desert. It's a beautiful day and the sky is clear and blue. The roads leading away from Eureka become long hills that seem to continue up and up and up. Where are all the downhills? I though Kansas was supposed to be flat! We all continued to question the fact that Kansas should be flat. We catch a nice cool breeze and start cruising a fairly decent pace. It's a great stretch for pictures so we stop pretty frequently.

I was ahead for quiet a distance when I decided to stop to get a picture of Bill cycling by. For the next two miles, I was jamming down the road 20+ just to catch up with Bill again. Cars are flying by us on this busy stretch of road but most seem to give us plenty of room. Much better than the drivers of Missouri! Our little band of road runners turn down a highway at Cassoday expecting to find a convenient store for water, but to no avail. It's another 30+ miles to Newton. After checking how much water we all have, we decide to push on.

Bill and I stop a little ways down the road to give Ella water and let her stretch her legs. I pour some more water over her to cool off and she shakes out, like a fuzzy sprinkler. With Ella back in her Captain's Chair, we pedal on to catch up with Celia. Celia decided she was going to stop for awhile to eat a snack. We know Celia can catch up, so we keep going. The cool breeze starts to disappear and the sun starts baking the road beneath our tires.

As we start our grind up another hill, Bill gets a flat. He is able to flip his bike over and start working on it right then. With Ella's Basket, changing a tire is a pain without something to lean the bike against or someone to hold it up. Celia catches back up and as Bill continues to fix his tire, he pulls out several small metal strips that had been embedded in his tire, probably the cause of the flat as well. A quick tube change and we are ready to head off again. The day gets hotter and hotter as we roll through the countryside. I was probably sweating as much as I was drinking. You could see all the salt along the frame of my bike where I lean over, almost like someone had sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

Miles dragged on under the blistering heat of the sun. Gasping like fish out of water, we roll up to a welcome party waiting for us just outside Newton Bike Shop. They take our picture as we roll in, and an extra picture of Ella, then lead us inside to sweet sweet air conditioning. They give us all water and Yoohoo before going over the shop/hostel with us. Newton Bike Shop truly is an Oasis in The Grass Desert. It's also the most kick-ass bike shop ever.

Oasis in the Grass Desert

Heather and James, the owners, are amazing. They do so much for their community and the cycling community. Plus they are just great people and a ton of fun to be around. After showing us to the community center to take showers, they took us out to Mexican where we all gorged ourselves and took a massive group selfie (maybe a few).

Back in the shop, James shows us the live camera which is apparently on 24/7. Ella had plenty of fans! James took me and Bob down to the bone yard, where he has over 70,000 bikes stored. It was insane and he does tons of custom work for movie productions and a whole list of famous people. The bikes he restores and customizes are works of art. I could have stayed down there for years just building and building and building. There were friends to be made and bikes to be worked on. I have had an absolute blast here at the shop.

James and Heather are a lot like my parents in the way they raise their kids, just cool, hands down. I feel like they would have gotten along great, to be honest. Well I have some pictures to upload on Instagram, laundry to switch and some doughnuts to eat at 11:30pm (a Newton Bike Shop tradition), so I'm packing up the keys and logging off! I hope you are enjoying our adventures and Ella hopes you continue to be her fans!