Hutchinson, KS to Nickerson, KS

We relaxed and left the hotel later.  We then went to the local bike shop in town and spent some more money.  Right next door was a barber shop and Phil got his hair cut.  We then decided to keep going and try and get to Sterling, KS.

It was only 11 miles to Nickerson, KS and then 11 miles to Sterling.  We got started in the afternoon.  As we got into Nickerson, we saw an Exotic Animal Farm and saw Camels and Zebras!

When we got to Nickerson, KS, we stopped at the convenience store to get some snacks.  Many of the folks told us about the city park we could camp in.  We decided to check it out and it had a shower.  We thought about going on, but realized Sterling was 3 miles off route which would mean we would have 3 extra miles in the morning.  We decided to camp, but Phil wanted to find someone’s yard to camp in since we had such bad luck in the city parks with noise, people, etc.  Phil struck up a conversation with a family grilling on their front porch.  They told us we could camp anywhere on the lawn.

We went back to the park to use the shower and then headed to the only restaurant in town.  We talked to one of the locals, but his name isn’t Paul.  Paul, evidently was there earlier that day, so his seat was fair game:

After we finished eating, we saw next door a cyclist parked outside the convenience store and we knew from the gear it was one of the racers.  Here we met Billy Rice.  He showed us the frost burn he had received from going down the mountain passes in the snow and only wearing knee warmers.  We were glad that we had packed long pants.

We then went back to our new friends house and they were finishing up their barbecue and getting ready to get back inside before the mosquitoes came out.  As soon as the sun went down, the mosquitoes came out and we quickly finished putting up the tent and got in.