Today we ended up in Maryville. I think it is in Kansas but not sure. We might still be in Nebraska. No we are in Kansas. On the ride roday we pssed an old school house that kids went to a 100 years ago.
Monday, June 26, 2023
Black Squirrels
The Bridge is Out!
Riding through cornfields and farms
We are riding on dirt roads for the most part. On either side of the road is either corn or soybeans.
I finally have internet
sSince we started camping we have not had any internet. Sorry about that. Our first night of camping we stayed in Oak Nebraska behind a school. The school has spots for 20 big RV's and our little tents.
Thursday, June 22, 2023
First Ride Day
Boys: I told you I would get you a rattlesnake!!!
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Time to Ride
Boys: We plan on riding about 400 miles on the Pony Express Trail. That is like driving to Tahoe and back in the same day.
We are starting in Kearney Nebraska and ending in St Joseph, Missouri. The Pony Express trail was created about 200 years ago to carry mail from St. Joseph to Sacramento California. The route travelled from Missouri, through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.
They would put the mail in a pack on a horse and the rider and horse would travel about 75 miles to 100 miles a day. Then the rider would change horses every 10-15 miles and continue on until the mail got to Sacramento. Every so often they would also change rider. But the mail never stopped moving. The trip was abgout 1800 miles long and it took 10 days for the mail to reach California.
The rider would turn around and head back to St. Joseph with mail that needed to be sent back to the East.
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Pony Express Here I Come
Heading to St Joseph MO to do the first segment of the Pony Express Trail.
The trail starts in St Joseph and finishes in Sacramento CA. My friends and I are doing the 1st segment of the ride (there are 5 segments) which ends in Kearny NE. For logistal reasons, we are starting in Kearny and ending in St Joseph as it was decided that this was the better direction.
I am going with some guys I meet on the Santa Fe Trail Ride a couple of years ago plus one other friend that joined us for our Nachez Trace ride. We lost one rider to a dislocated shoulder. We are sagging so this means that we share transporting our gear each day as well as to provide rider support. Total trip should be about 400 miles and we plan on taking 7 days to complete.
The trip is mostly gravel, so racking up more than 50 miles in a day will be a challenge. First time on gravel for me. I re-built my 1995 Trek Mountain bike to handle the gravel (50mm tires, a tune up , larger rear cassette, etc). In hindsight I should have bought a new bike - but there is no more room in my bike workshop ("8 is enough").
My bike has now shipped and waiting for me in St Joseph’s MO. I decided to include a Apple Air Tag in the bag and I tracked it from the time it left Florida to the time it arrived at my friend's house in Missouri. Pretty interesting to see where the bike travelled with UPS. First day the bike travelled over 900 miles.
We doing a combination of camping and hotelling. To be honest there were not a lot of choices on where to stay - so we focused on staying in locations as close to the trail as we could find that also have food options for breakfast and dinner.
That worked in most places except Oak NE (pop. 55 and the 473rd largest city in Nebraska ) where the only campground was labelled as "primative". Which meant no running water and no indoor toilets. One of the riders, Russ was able to work some magic with some fellow churchgoers and he found us a place behind the "school" that supposedly have some flush toilets. Should be fun!