USA coast to coast stage 17 Guymon OK to Liberal KS

 68KM, 118M climbed, 2 hours 45 minutes 

Total 2,152KM, 13,887M climbed, 88 hours 39 minutes 

After heavy overnight thunderstorms I was worried that today was going to be a wet wide but luckily woke up to blue sky and roads drying out.

As today’s ride was going to be the shortest of the whole trip we had an extra hour sleep which was most welcome and set off at 8:30.

The first rest stop was at a town called’Hooker’ which is strange for a town in the middle of the USA to be named after a position in a rugby team.

We then crossed our fifth state line into our sixth state Kansas through which we will ride for the next week.

As we are in Kansas we visited Dorothy’s house which to be honest was a tacky way of cashing in on the Wizard of Oz.

After a couple of difficult cycling days the last two days have allowed me to recover and also get to the hotel at a reasonable time to be able to wash clothes, catch up with my family, have a bath and update social media before dinner which is at 5:00 most days.

As we approach the half way stage I feel that I am seeing the real America and enjoying riding on most days.  As a group of strangers we have gelled together well and the majority of us so far have cycled what is known as EFI which stands for Every F***** Inch.  I have seen the landscape change remarkably from the desert of California to the high desert of Arizona and New Mexico and now though the Great Plains of middle USA with the main industry being farming.


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