July 13 - Rest Day in Larned

Gloria

We sadly bid farewell to Carol and Steve at breakfast this morning.  They were a joy to have along.  We will miss them!  Thanks for joining us, Carol and Steve!   Safe travels to you both.

After breakfast our threesome walked across the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn to Shopko, which is similar to a K-Mart.  We each found something relatively small that we absolutely had to have, then we returned to the hotel.

Lunch had us on our bikes again for a ride to Subway.  Once we finished lunch, we decided to explore Downtown Larned.  That took about 5 minutes.  Michael spotted a pie shop and decided to stay downtown.  I later found out that it was closed due to a busted air conditioner.

Eric and I backtracked a bit to go to the Sante Fe Trail Center Museum.  There were several impressive things about this museum:

~ it has a traveling exhibit entitled "For the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights"

~ it has an abundance of amazing Sante Fe Trail artifacts 

~ the museum and the outside buildings really give you a feel for past life in Larned, KS

For more about this wonderful place, go to this link:

http://santafetrailcenter.org/

Important side note: so far people in Kansas have really bent over backwards to help us and other bikers.  We've had numerous people stop and ask if we needed help.  Road repairmen even drove one of the bikers to his hotel when he had trouble with one of his tires.  Really nice people~

Tonight we plan to order pizza and chill.  We are planning another early start for tomorrow's ride.

On another topic...several people have commented about how disappointed they were that Elias Durry did not wear his red (and black) spandex like he did ten years ago.  One even sounded like she didn't believe that he even wore spandex.  Well...here are a few throwback photos for the disappointed non-believers.  Enjoy!