Day 32 - Scott City, KS to Leoti, KS - 25 mi

Welp, everyone awoke tired to gale force winds out of the South. According to the locals in Leoti these winds are not normal and are the remnants of the hurricane that hit near Texas. I barely knew we even had the first hurricane of the season if it wasn't for watching TV at a restaurant a day or two ago - so disconnected!

The majority of the group hit up a donut shop in Scott City, KS which is apparently part of a chain, but the donuts were delicious! I personally had a strawberry topped long john, a peanut butter topped donut, and a maple glazed donut with peanuts on top. This was after a 6" breakfast sub at Subway! Luckily the donut shop also had a TV so we were able to watch most of the Netherlands vs. Brazil world cup soccer game before departing on our daily ride. A ride which today consisted of a whole 25 miles!

The group consensus this morning was to do an extremely short day because the winds are whipping so hard it was still pretty dangerous and extremely tiring to ride on Rt. 96 across Kansas (with all of the trucks and cars flying by us). One of the best sites of the day was a wind farm with all of the turbines catching the mighty Southern wind and putting it to good use! I tried to catch a picturesque moment with a train passing in front of the wind farm, but I may have needed to zoom in a little bit more:


After arriving at the town park in Leoti some of the team hit up the public pool for a cold dip while others went straight for the showers and/or took a nap. Although our ride was short, I am probably the most sleepy tired today compared to any other day this trip. I suppose that is because we rode 120 miles yesterday. On such a short day there is not much news to report. We did catch up to and proceed to pass (tomorrow) the guided tour group from Adventure Cycling who are riding the TransAm from East to West. They have a few more rest days built in and are not quite cruising at our pace. We have seen a few of them around Leoti and will probably see them out on the trail tomorrow! I will try to put up a special edition about the tour.

One last note, if you haven't ever checked out Bret Taylor's video from last year's trip across the TransAm (not including the Western Express as they traveled to oregon) you may want to check it out. I think it is fairly popular among TransAm cyclists - something like a cult following.