Day Ten: Storm Chasing-- Us!

This afternoon we stopped in Bucklin, KS for a break at the public library. We took care of some stuff on the computer and rested for a few hours. While we were there a group of boys named Eli, Caleb, Cooper, Challence, and Tate came up and started hanging out with us. We learned a lot from them and they were super cool to us. They brought us Cherry Cokes and pop tarts! What great guys, we know they will make great men some day.

After leaving Bucklin, we noticed some dark storm clouds approaching across the Kansas territory (tornado alley, right?) so we started biking to stay ahead of it. For three hours we biked to stay ahead of the storm, but it seemed like it was traveling east at the same speed we were. We were just on the edge, and the winds were howling and trying to suck us back in. While riding we looked left, and a few miles off we saw a small tornado touch down, kicking up some dirt in a farmer's wheat field. Bryce's boyhood dream fulfilled! We had heard a tornado siren sound briefly in one of the towns we passed through as well. 

After a long battle the storm caught up with us. The wind got stronger, nearly blowing us over. We took shelter a couple times in ditches and next to buildings a couple times when it got really bad. But finally we just had to keep biking so we could make it into town before dark. 

We raced the storm, and the storm won. Soaked. 

We finally got to Pratt, KS, and made a huge amount of pasta in the church kitchen. Destroyed it. 

For Bikers:

1. Public Libraries are a great places for taking breaks. They have free computer use, plenty of water, and often green lawns to take a nap in. Most every town has them too.

2. Bryce's Blackburn pump broke last week, but today when he called about the warranty they offered to send him a new one, for free, and said I could just throw the old one out. They didn't ask for any verification or anything. I was very impressed with their quick service.

3. Definitely invest is some thorn proof tubes, they will save you time and money. We both have one thorn proof each, and they have not been punctured yet! On the other hand, we can't count on both hands how many times each standard tube has blown. 

4. Don't over pump your tubes at gas stations if you use  their pump. The tubes will blow! Hah