Day 1 (return): 6/20/2022: Overland Park to La Cygne, KS

 Lisa and I have had a blast these last couple of weeks in Kansas visiting our kids, grandbaby, and granddog, but it's time to go home.  We said our farewells to each other this morning and parted ways at Overland Park (pic below).

We have our 2 different forms of transportation and one of us will be home in 10-11 hours and the other 10-11 days.  Can you guess which is which?

My first 4 miles today were ridden on a nice multi-use path beside a busy road.  I then rode about 4 miles on the Tomahawk Creek Trail (pics below) which is a greenway path that follows Tomahawk Creek.

From cycling about the last few days, I have found that Overland Park and Lenexa are very bike friendly communities.   There are several greenway trails and low traffic roads marked for bicycle travel that one can take to get to different places.

Once I got out of the Overland Park metro area, I quickly got into rural east Kansas.  About half of my trip today was done on gravel roads similar to the one pictured below.  I'm a slow rider anyway, but riding on as much gravel as I did today made me discover that I can ride painfully slow:)

On these roads there was very little traffic, but when a vehicle did pass me it would throw up a large dust cloud that would engulf me.  Most of my scenery on these rural roads looked similar to the pic below.

I came across Miami Presbyterian Church (established 1887) (pic below) in the middle of nowhere and stopped there to eat some Cheerios and a banana.

The first community I came across was New Lancaster, KS.  There wasn't much there, but I did snap a couple of pics of the old General Store.

I finally made it to La Cygne, my stopping place for the night.  It seemed as though I had ridden 70+ miles today, and was surprised when I learned that I had ridden less than 60 miles.  La Cygne has a small campground in it's city park, and I camped there for $10.  I had to pay a $2 deposit for the key that unlocks the shower, but I will get that back when I return the key.  All of this financial business took place at City Hall.  I love these small Midwestern towns:)  A few pics below around La Cygne.

My bicycle is starting to look like alot of the cars in this area from all the gravel travel (pics below).  I could also feel grit on my lips and teeth from all the dust.

Sunset pic from the campground 

Total miles today: 57.5