Lots of progress made today.

First stop today was Rocky Mountain Cycle Plaza for some badly-needed shoes. I called around a bunch before I turned in yesterday and made sure they had at least a rear in stock.

I have a too-big front on now (160/70 instead of 160/60) so the speedo and odometer are off, but I was mostly using the GPS for instrumentation anyway. The side effect of this is that Fuelly thinks my mileage has totally tanked. It has—Kansas has been mostly high-speed straight lines, which are terrible for my mileage—but not *that* bad.

While waiting for mounting/balancing, a man approached me and irrefutably identified himself as a maxxer. Hello, lovecraft!

New tires always feel like an epiphany. The few corners I had today felt like magic. But before long Kansas happened.

Look at that horizon!

I saw a lot of that, and a lot of corn. And I still haven't seen the sun yet.

I was charmed by the small towns on my way, and the folks I interacted with either ignored me, or were very friendly. Unfortunately I had to rely on instruments more than usual for finding gas because when flying VFR, I kept getting false positives.

I get itchy for gas after I've put on 100 miles or so, and I pulled into two or three defunct gas stations hoping for a fill.

Around Oakley, KS my route suddenly called for a 100 mile detour north on US-83, and—thanks to a normal lack of thorough planning—I discovered why: US-40 links with I-70, and I was avoiding interstates. Screw it, I'd rather be home sooner, I haven't seen my wife in a while. I continue on to I-70.

Now, if you haven't been to Kansas, there are your standard billboards lining the superslab, but there's also at least as many "Jesus is my homeboy" signs, or at least signs to that effect. And about as many anti-abortion signs. I didn't take any pictures since I don't like being harassed by fundies.

Other than that and the depressing gas station corpses, Kansas was pretty.

Tomorrow: Missouri.