Sorry about destroying your highways, Kansas. But a mobber's gotta mob.

After notes from the two other trunk-legged ones, it is again me, mr. peter, typing from beautiful Kansas City we are sitting full and dry in a nice, air-conditioned house that my parents now call home. Kansas is humid. I mean REAL humid. We descended out of Colorado into Kansas to find the plains filled with levitating standing water and some of the craziest lightning storms any of us have ever seen. I figured it out, and as of the day that we left Colorado Springs, we have less time left on the road than days that have passed since we left our homes in Oregon. So we're past the halfway point on our journey, I'm sayin, and it's unbelievable how fast everything is going. Huge thanks to those who sent us their love in paper form, it was really great to read your letters when we arrived at my parents' house. I hope everyone has enjoyed the words of what up from the guys, I personally found them to be hysterical.

Day 41 (Continued)
When we left off last in the blog, the three of us were hanging out in Colorado Springs, CO with the Groundwaters. Anne had hurt her hand the night before in a hit and run curbing incident, and was getting ready to drive us with her braced extremity to Breckenridge, where we would be nearer to Keystone for the following day's Bluegrass Brew fest. So, in a car we traveled in about 2 1/2 hours what would have taken us at least two days to ride our bikes to Breckenridge. It was a head trip, going that fast and far in that short of time. It's weird the way our perception of reasonable distances and expectations of time and space have changed during this trip. It's very calming, actually, to be so limited yet so empowered at the same time in regards to where we go and what we do. Once in Breckenridge we had a lovely birthday dinner with Anne and her parents and brother. I had one of my wishes for the trip fulfilled when both Anne and John were thoroughly embarrassed by one of their mother's childhood stories about sex education and the viewing of their family's tryout video for "The Amazing Race." Cute family, great story tellers.

Day 42 Saturday August 2: Acting a fool in Keystone
I can't say I remember entirely too much about Saturday. It's not that it was boring or uneventful, it's that we went to a brew fest full of amazing micro brews armed with "all you can drink" glasses in our hands. It was a really fun time, and you can see above that we busted mad moves on the dance concrete, but if you're looking for specific stories for that, the few that we remember may have to wait until we're together with a few more brews. The ride home was fun, though. I hope a few of you enjoyed Kelvin and Nate's phone conversations or messages. Let them know what they said, they're curious. I was busy taking a nap out the front window of the van. Sorry we didn't get to talk.

Day 43 Sunday August 3: The Springs to Rush, CO 38.89 miles
After a REALLY slow moving morning, we piled back into the van to head back to Colorado Springs and get back on the bikes. Whew. I don't know how this is going to go, considering the Pepto Bismal (I know what I wrote, I don't need spell check, ok?) was not sitting that well. Jeez, after two rest days you would think we'd be rarin and ready. But oh how the bluegrass takes it out of you. Yeah, that's it, the bluegrass. Anyways, we fiddled about for awhile but finally got back out on the bikes in the late afternoon. The late start and a fierce crosswind didn't allow us much distance, but a hearty meal behind a farmer's barn (we asked permission, of course) and a good night's sleep ahead of us had us talking about going for a landmark day the next day. 200 miles, a near unthinkable feat, was our goal. What better time to try than after a few rest days, coming out of Colorado onto the plains with a slight descent the entire way. If weather and wind could only cooperate, we had a lot of confidence in our success. We all went to bed feeling great, excited for the next day's extremely difficult ride.

Day 44 Monday August 4: Rush to Weskan Unincorporated, KS 112.26 miles
As you can see above, we didn't quite make 200 miles. We tried, though, and for awhile it looked like there was a chance. But the summer sun in Kansas can be a mean, mean mugger. We were out on the bikes by 6:30am, easily our earliest start of the trip, and averaged 20mph for the first 80 miles. But as the morning progressed, the sun just kept on heating up, and the humidity in Kansas makes for a suffocating experience. at 12:30 our water was fit to make tea and we were hitting a big wall. We acknowledged our vincibility and decided to simply cruise to a new personal record before calling it a day. We crossed the Kansas/Colorado border at around 5 or so and were immediately welcomed into Kansas by a treacherous headwind. I mean bad. So we decided to stay just over the Kansas border and continue on tomorrow. This has probably turned out to be the best decision of the trip. No more than 45 minutes later were we witnesses to a supershow of lightning on the horizon. The show quickly became interactive as we were nearly knocked over by winds well of at least 50mph. We scrambled to gather our gear as it flew off into the recently arrived downpour. Luckily, we were under a substantial shelter in a roadside park, and could organize ourselves into the dry pockets and create a wind block behind of the corner walls on the shelter. An unrealistically nice local candy bar salesman informed us that his local church was unlocked and we could sleep there, but we opted for the shelter on the other side of the park, as the wind was almost nonexistent over there due to it's location in reference to the granary across the street. We spent a nice night listening to the rain fall and the trains blow past underneath a picnic table in the park.

Day 45 Tuesday August 5: Weksan to Oakley 67.49 miles
Mountains are hard. I'll be the first to admit that. you pedal and pedal and hardly get anywhere and it seems never ending and just keeps going up. But with a mountain, there is a peak, and you eventually get to the top. The feeling of accomplishment is indescribably fulfilling, and the downhill ride that follows is exhilarating. Kansas doesn't have mountains. It's quite flat, although there are a cool bit of rolling hills, but it doesn't have it's reputation for nothing. What Kansas does have, though, is wind. Strong wind. And when it's not going in the same direction as you, in fact going the opposite direction as you, it is just as hard if not harder than a mountain. The problem with a headwind, though, is there is no peak, and no downhill to follow. It's invisible and relentless and incredibly frustrating. We had planned to fly across Kansas, doing close to 100 miles a day. But this was just not going to happen on this day, as the wind would not allow it. We made it just under 70 miles to a quaint little town near I-70 and felt as exhausted as we've felt all trip. Forget this, let's try again tomorrow. We played golf with a soccer ball in the local park and watched a rapid fire lighting storm off on the horizon before going to sleep.

Day 46 Wednesday August 6: Oakley to Webster Lake 102.85 miles
No head wind today, and now we have the goal of getting to Kansas City by Saturday, so as to see a Royals night game and hit the big city night life. So we mobbed. A wonderful day of cruising, and a nice swim and a shower at the end of it all. As the night set in, we were given front row seats to one of the most constant lightning storms I've ever seen. Good thing our tent is lightning-proof. Nothing to worry about while camping by the lake. Then it rained. A lot.

Day 47 Thursday August 7: Webster Lake to Beloit 82.67 miles
It rained all night. Then it stopped just long enough for us to wake up and get out of the tent. Then it rained all over us. Everything was wet. We put on our rain gear, which we had yet to really bust out, and set out. Turns out that stuff isn't so effective. That's cool. Spirits were high and our muscles weren't sore at all, or something the opposite of that. We made it to the first town about 10 miles away and stumbled into a cafe looking like three drowned rats. We stayed for about 8 cups of coffee each and watched the rain continue to fall. We finally decided to pull on our boot straps or whatever and head back out into the shower when, miraculously, the rain let up. We rode for a couple miles, and it stopped completely. In an hour, the sun was shining. Our luck is hilariously good, in my opinion. We cruised the rest of the day. We hit up the county fair in Beloit, but had apparently gotten there a little late, as the scene had really cooled off from the excitement we'd heard in the distance while eating dinner. Oh well, we'll come across another county fair or two before this is all over, if we're lucky. Everything is still damp, stuff has a hard time drying in this humidity, but we sleep out under the stars in hopes of cooling off a bit. Good luck.

Day 48 Friday August 8: Beloit to Historical Marker (just outside of Belvue) 118.43 miles
When we first started this trip, I found it odd that we slept outside without the slightest discomfort. I could never do that as a child, as you would wake up wet if you didn't have substantial sheltering. As the trip went on I forgot about this, but was not surprised when I awoke on Friday to find all of our stuff, including the bags we were sleeping in, as soaked as if it had been raining in the night. There was a thick fog and the dew was everywhere. I admit we were starting to get a little frustrated with the constant wetness, but I'm overjoyed that we are much quicker to laugh at our misfortune than cry. It's really hilarious, when you think about it. So we cruised and cruised through the rolling hills of north central Kansas. Hoping to reach Lawrence tomorrow before noon to meet with my parents for lunch, we had a lot of ground to cover. We arrived in Manhattan shortly before sundown, and decided that we could make it the next day if we got a little outside of town and then awoke with the dawn the next morning. I broke a spoke on the back tire on the way out, but it did not prove to be debilitating and we continued on. The sun set and we busted out our lights to be safer for our short night ride. The fireflies joined us, and some trains decided to ride alongside us as well. With the sky pink on the horizon to our backs, I found it one of the most mystical rides we've had to date. I was in the front on this ride. Kelvin, in the rear because he has by far the brightest tail light, was shitting bricks. And rightly so, the shoulder wasn't huge and it was quite dark and scary when giant cars would pass by closer than was comfortable. But no one wants to hear about this, we were clearly very safe and will never do anything even resembling something dangerous ever again, for sure. The more reasonable of the two of us, he recommended we stop and camp in contrast to my suggestion that we continue on into the night. It made sense, especially considering we were to be waking up to ride again in less than 7 hours. Nate set his alarm for 5am and fixed my spoke while I made some dinner. We slept on a gravel parking lot at a historical marker between the highway and the railroad tracks. A train horn 20 yards away is a terrifying way to be awoken in the middle of the night. Really gets the blood flowing.

Day 49 Saturday August 9: Historical Marker to Lawrence (Ride to KC) 61.81 miles
There have been mornings where getting up at 9:30 to go riding has been an epic challenge, so I have no idea how the three of us were up and going with such ease at 5 in the morning, after our longest ride yet and about 6 hours of sleep, but it happened. We rode a few miles into a small town for some coffee, and continued on when some rain started spitting on us. It wasn't bad, and I told my father that a ride would not be necessary, it's hardly raining. He said the radar showed we were being dumped upon, I said it was hardly a sprinkle. Two minutes after getting off the phone, the downpour began. This continued for the next 50 miles. Fun. It wasn't all that bad really, it's a heck of a lot easier to ride in the rain when you know your day will end with a hot shower in a warm bed, and I was really excited to be back in KC to see my friends and family. With 18 miles left to Lawrence things didn't seem so bad. 10 miles later, the sign said 12 miles to Lawrence. Highway crews can be so cruel sometimes. But what can you do except keep pedaling away, and eventually we found ourselves at Free Street Brewing Co. in beautiful Lawrence Kansas. It's kind of swanky, and when we received more than a few sideways glances when we stumbled in sopping in our spandex. But we dried off and prettied up and were soon sitting happily with some delicious brew, our first beers since that immemorable day in Keystone. Soon my parents arrived, not on bikes, as they aren't insane and didn't want to ride 80 miles in a storm. They actually had come equipped with a bike rack fit for three, and I eagerly accepted. Kelvin has endurance and drive that just don't quit and was ready to put the wet spandex back on and go back out into the fight. He was convinced, however, and within 30 seconds of getting into the back seat of the car was dead to the world, passed out into the black depths. The weather ended up turning into a beautiful night, and the three of us cruised in the parental vehicle to beautiful Kaufman stadium in time for our first Major League game of the trip. My old high school buddies Pat and Al met us there, and while screaming along to "Low Places" by Garth Brooks, we were all presented to the crowd on one of the largest jumbo-trons in America. Good times. The Royals lost, but it was really the people around us who got to witness some true fanatics that were the real winners. After stopping by the house for a quick bite, we set up to hit the town. I'd never until this night had the pleasure of being dropped off with my friends at the bars on a Saturday night by my mother. It was cool. Back with Pat and Al and some of their friends, we hit up Westport with a fury. Buzzard Beach is really an organic Kansas City experience, although the best foozballers come out on weeknights, fyi. From there we busted moves at some other bar the locals brought us to. Oh did we bust moves. The bars stay open until 3 in Missouri, an extra hour of fun for us Oregonians. From there we went for a bite at the IHOP, but Kelvin was tired and took a nap in the car. It was a hilarious night, and such a great experience for me to see my two really close friends from Kansas and two really close friends from Oregon come together for such a fun night. Our day ended 24 hours after it began, stumbling up to bed with a belly full of pancakes.

Day 50 Sunday August 10: Living Large in KC 0 miles
I'm apparently on a schedule that gets me up early. I awoke at 9:30 and felt surprisingly good. The other guys are better at breaking routine, and wisely slept until 1:30. I was extremely tired by the time 1:30 came. But that's neither here nor there, really, although this blog post is extremely long, and I know that only the hard core loved ones are still interested enough in this business to still be reading at this point. Thanks y'all, I get really excited whenever I hear that people are reading this thing. Anyways, when in KC, you have to eat barbecue. Now I know that many of you may have heard of Gates, or a guy named Arthur Bryant, and they're good. But the locals all have their own spot, and my family's is Hayward’s. We stuffed our faces with delicious barbecue and all felt a lot better because of it. From there we ventured to the famous Kansas City Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I am clearly biased, but I've also been to a couple of famous museums, and I'd put the Nelson up there with the best I've ever been to. It was closed, but we still spent 45 minutes wandering around the grounds, looking at haunting sculptures and admiring the scenery. Not to mention hanging around the largest Shuttlecocks in the world. No joke. It's closed on Monday, but we plan to go again on Tuesday before we head out on our ride, as I seriously assert that the Nelson is a must-see if you are ever in the greater Kansas City area. It's free, too, so there you go. From there we cruised over to my aunt and uncle's house for some grilled burgers and some Olympic gymnastics. It's great going from eating pasta with sardines all week to gorging on barbecue and homemade meals. After that it was back to Westport, where we met up with my good friend Ethan Osman for a few beers. The foosball was epic and the dance party was really drunk and shirtless, but sadly it was not performed by us, although we all were quite amused. After heading out from the Beach we jaunted around the Nelson lawn again, listening to Ethan relate some crazy tales before crashing at his place for the night.

And now it is today, which I will relate to you another day. I forgot to mention that I spoke with an Emma Spehar on the phone during this span of time, and she informed me that she may be in Boston around the same time as we are. Possibly the 13th of September. Now I'm just putting this out there, but if anyone would like to celebrate the end of our adventure with us, Boston on the 13th is going to be the place to be. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. From here we head up to Lincoln, Nebraska, then on to Sioux City, Iowa to complete the Peter Kass family tour. From there it's on to Chicago, Illinois, Oberlin, Ohio, and then a sprint to the Atlantic with stops for Philly Cheese steaks. I hope everything is good with you. And I hope that thing that was getting you down has cleared up. You know what I mean.
Stay big.