Day 26 June 6th

Hesston to Larned 95 miles
I kept being woken up by the wind last night. It was really loud and was shaking the tent. So I was awake at 5:45 but unfortunately couldn’t see the sunrise because of some trees around my campsite. Peanut butter and chocolate milk for breakfast and on the road by 8. The first 4 miles out of Hesston were bad because the road was all torn up and stripped but that would be the least of my problems for the day. There was a really strong wind from the south/south west today that kept my speed to 12 mph and even that was a struggle. Plus I knew that there would be no park to the trip where I would be heading north to take advantage of the wind.
I rode about 35 miles and got to some town by 10 and was able to fill my bottles with Gatorade and set off for the 58 miles of uninhabited farm land ahead of me. My god it was bad. There were plenty of times where I was having trouble doing 10 mph and would settle for 8. But there was no traffic. It was really endless and not being able to go fast really hurt my spirit and kept me down. It kept weighing on my mind that this stretch could take 5 hours or more. I decided to not even stop to take pictures to conserve what little momentum I had even though there weren’t too many good views, more of the same farm lands. Part of the way was actually through a wetland. Who knew Kansas actually had one of those so I got a picture while still moving. the only relief that i would get from the wind were groupings of trees every few miles.There seemed to be a new grouping every time I got to a new horizon so about every 2 miles and it would last for maybe ¼ mile. About 25 miles from Larned something changed. Either the wind changed or I just got a second wind but I was finally moving. I averaged about 16 mph for the last 20 miles and got to town around 4:45. So I rode for over 8 hours and only did 95 miles. I found out it hit 97 degrees today too and I think the back of my neck is burnt. A cop told me that the campsite is next to the city pool so I was able to go there and relax in the water for a little while and it did wonders.
I didn’t have lunch today because I was planning on finding a spot during the 58 mile stretch where I could sit in the shade. But there weren’t many choices and when I did try to stop I was immediately swarmed by flies trying to bite me. So I was a little light headed when I was talking to the cop but she gave me some water and I was able to make it that half mile to the pool. I found a Chinese buffet in town and spent over an hour there. I ended up talking to the waitress for a while since I hadn’t had anyone to talk to since I left Danny.