Emporia, Toronto, and Girard

Oh, I don't know, 150+ miles?

Toronto was an odd town, but we had the comfort of sleeping in a church again. Donna, a woman on the board for the church, took us to the local campground to take showers. She was amazing, a pistol for someone in her mid 70's. My favorite thing she said was, "It's hard to hit a moving target!" in regards to her abundance of energy.

Today we rode 85 miles in 102 degrees, went to Sonic for dinner, and ate cheese burgers. McKinley was a vegan before this trip, in which she refers to it as her non-vegan adventure, and I had been a vegetarian for 3 years. I plan to resume that status once I hit Virginia.

McKinley and I are asked repetetive questions on a daily basis by random locals. While I'm usually happy to answer those questions, it is often exhausting. There's the verbal answers, and then there's the actual internal answers; here's a few examples:

1 - How are you handling the heat? (this is my favorite new one)

Verbal answer- We ride really early in the morning and quit around noon.

Internal answer- Uh, Kansas is a sauna of death, but actually, I wish it could be hotter! (it was 85 degrees and very humid when we left at 4:30 this morning)

2 - How many miles do you do a day?

Verbal answer- 60-80 miles.

Internal answer- I can go no further, it's insanely hot, I'm going to lay in the gravel and wait for death. Do you have a pick up truck?

3 - How can you afford to do this?

Verbal answer- I saved money and have summers off

Internal answer - Why is my financial situation your business? Hey, how much do you get paid?

4 - So what route are you taking?

Verbal answer - Oh I'm not sure, our maps tell us where to go.

Followed by the person telling us which way we should go, rather than follow our maps.

Internal answer- I paid a lot of money for these bicycle maps and will follow the established route. Unless there's a road closure, I'm not going your way, because I have no idea how to find my way out of it if we get lost, or if we would even pass a town to fill up our water bottles. Again, I paid for these maps, so I'll stick to my planned route.

*Disclaimer: We are always very polite to everyone, but sometimes it's frustrating when it's one million degrees and we are overheated, and are asked the same questions 15 times a day.