Back On The Saddle Again

Part II

Day 1

Kansas City, KS to Olathe, KS

20 miles

This is a picture of my relatives and their "modern wagon" that they traveled in for their trip back in 1911. My great-great grandfather, Charles Cousins, is on the far right. My great grandfather, George Harry Cousins, is on the far left and my grandmother, Irene Cousins in the smallest child in the center of the picture.

This is a picture of our group as we started out today. From left to right are, Abby Weaver, Rachel Wallace, Clay Burkholder, Kathy Burkholder, Tom Weaver, Susan Weaver, Mary Kate Weaver and Ellen Merriman. A boy at a restaurant today called our support crew "The Green Girls", so that has become their official title.

Spent the majority of the day packing our vehicles and driving to our starting point in the Kansas City area. We started from Leawood City Park. It was nice to start out on day 1 with a short ride with most of it being a bike trail. Unfortunately, the trail wasn't marked very well and there was a section that was closed so it took us longer than we had anticipated. Tom and Susan did very well for being tandem newbies. Especially when you consider that they had only ridden about 25 miles on their tandem before today.

The temperature today was 99F. A lot of people have asked us why we picked such a hot time of year to do this ride. Well, when you have 8 people and their schedules to work around, it is very difficult to find a 2 week period when everyone could be free to go. So really we didn't pick this time, it picked us! I did buy an air conditioner for the bikes. See the picture below.

We appreciate all the encouragement we've gotten and hope you enjoy reading our daily progress blogs. Please keep us in your prayers as it looks like this hot weather is going to continue for awhile!