6-17-09 ~ We woke up after a great night sleep, again to Bobby's alarm. It was a beautiful morning but it was one where you could tell it was gonna be blazing hot that day. We were the first in the Osborne grocery store and inhaled a breakfast of apple juice and honey buns. Down the rode not more than ten miles Dietrich broke a spoke on his rear wheel on the cassette side. Of course the one tool we don't have is the tool to remove the cassette. We quickly decided to have Dietrich hitch hike up to the next big town of Beloit while Bobby and Seth rode. Seth and Bobby had an absolutely miserable time getting to Beloit as there was a brutal headwind. The miles seemed to drag on compared to the riding yesterday.
On Dietrich's end, he became great buddies with the Kansan boys in blue. The cops were great and got Dietrich to Beloit. When Seth and Bobby got to Beloit, they found Dietrich joking and carrying on with the local cops. It turns out that there is about one cop on duty per county and they had radioed all around and could transport Dietrich from county line to county line in relay fashion. The only problem was that the cop in Clay county, the county east was busy and would be unable to participate. Again Eric the cop came through and found Dietrich a ride to the town of Manhattan where Kansas State University was located. The final decision of the team was this: Dietrich would go to Manhattan while Bobby and Seth would ride onward to Clay Center which was 40 miles short of Manhattan. Dietrich, depending on when he got his bike fixed, would either spend the night in Manhattan or hitch hike back to Clay Center to rejoin Bobby and Seth.
Dietrich's ride wasn't coming for a few hours, so Bobby and Seth left. Their ride couldn't have been more miserable. A ridiculous headwind the entire way, sweltering heat, and nothing but fields. Seth spent most of the ride staring straight down not even wanting to look up to see how far he had to ride.
Despite the terrible conditions, Bobby and Seth championed forward and were within 10 miles of Clay Center when Dietrich pulled up in a luxorious truck. They stopped to talk. It turns out that the reason that the Clay county cop was unable to participate in the relay that morning was because an attempted murder had occurred with a cop killing the attacker. We were told about how dramatic this was for the small Kansan town that hasn't seen a crime like this in decades. Cops were everywhere and us as outsiders were unlikely to find any hospitality in the town. Taking things as they came, Bobby and Seth decided to join Dietrich and ride the rest of the way to Manhattan.
In Manhattan, we got Dietrich's bike fixed and had a supper of Chipotle burritos. Bob Conway, the man who we stayed with in Osborne, had managed to get ahold of his daughters who go to K-State. They were glad to put us up in their apartment. We rode down there and met Tara, Traci, and Tessa. We ended up staying in Tara's apartment because she had the most room. She was great and let us shower and relax. We also met Tara's boyfriend Tanner who had grown up on a huge farm west of Manhattan. It was awesome to hang out with people our age and that night we had a rousing game of Rummy. We played cards to the late hour of 10:30. Seth managed to pull out a W in Rummy. We had a blast hanging out with the Conway family and Co. We crashed onto the couches after a long day ready for sleep.
We would really like to thank the Conway family for all the ways that they blessed us in the past 2 days. Everything they did for us was above and beyond anything we could have expected. The people of Kansas truly practise the virtues of kindess and generosity that every American should have.
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