Day 2, 3/21, 5:59pm - Walnut, KS to Chanute, KS - 26 miles.
Picture 1: Fixin' the deraileur
Picture 2: Slow, windy road to Chanute
Picture 3: Historic Marker
Picture 4: Trish and d'bike
Picture 5: Chanute's bike shop
We broke camp around 7:30 this morning, and spent about a half hour
at the general store filling water bottles and talking to folks. One man
we talked to told us a bit of Walnut history and how his mother had kept
a registry of all the bikers that had passed through town. He also told
us of the bikers that would tent out on his lawn, sometimes twenty at a
time.
We left Walnut around 8:00 am and headed for Chanute. The headwind
was very strong and we seemed to be making very slow progress over the
rolling countryside. We made several stops and it seemed our energy level
was not quite as high as the day before.
Along the way, we stopped at an historical marker describing the Neosho
Mission school. The school was used to convert the Native Americans to
Christianity. The actual site of the school was five miles west of this
marker. Our cycle computers are still broken and Ben hasn’t been able to
locate the source of the problem. 26 miles after Walnut, we were in Chanute.
Around 1:00 p.m. we pedaled into Chanute and rode directly to the bike
shop "Spoke Folks." We were hoping to get a new Avocet mount
kit. As we pulled in, Sheryl and baby Acacia Maya came out to cheerily
greet us. Her husband, Rex, came out to join us and we looked over the
bike. They suspected the wiring got damaged and was the source of the problem.
We toured their lovely store and spent about an hour trading bicycle stories.
Sheryl and Rex are computer programmers as well, and hope to set up a website
for bicyclists to communicate along the TransAmerica trail. This would
be a great way for cyclists to communicate with each other, arrange drop
sites, and share stories of the road with each other. Anyone traveling
through Chanute should stop in and sign their book. We were the first to
sign their book this year!
We made camp at a local hotel and prepared for our rest day. It sure
felt great to sleep in a king size bed and finally get a shower! We hope
to leave Sunday morning at dawn, and make it to Girard by early afternoon!
