Today we left Kansas City and the state of Kansas behind. To my knowledge, Kansas is the widest state that we bike from one end to the other of on our trip — and it felt like the widest too. The terrain was very flat of course, but the scorching heat that is part of the current national and global heatwave made almost every day of biking there difficult and tiring.
The plains and the sky.
Scorching temps last week.
All that aside, I did enjoy travelling through Kansas and especially enjoyed visiting Kansas City. We stayed with many wonderful hosts including Mark who gave us a warm send-off this morning and biked with us to the outskirts of Kansas City.
The team and our KC host Mark.
Our team also taught in Newton and in Kansas City to many wonderful students. The questions and ideas that the students have and their unique perspectives are always surprising.
Kansas City was very meaningful to me. My grandmother is from Kansas City originally, and I have many relatives living there. However, I had not visited nor met them before! They welcomed me into their homes for meals and I was heartened by the way they treated me as if we had known each other all my life. My dad’s cousin Linda treated the whole team to a Kansas City BBQ dinner!
For all of these reasons and more it feels like a milestone to be entering Missouri. The change couldn’t have been clearer with dense forest and rolling hills for much of our ride today.
-Leo