Mistakes were made

Mistakes were made today. Actually it started yesterday when I got a message from Alex the Belgian asking if I was past the town of Pittsburg. Since that was where I was I let him know. It seems he left a pair of really expensive bike shorts at a motel in town and he wanted me to grab them and mail them to him. No big deal but I told him I'd get them to him faster than the post office. Since he didn't believe me I picked them up and mailed them ahead to Colorado for him.

Mistake 2 was my fault for believing the weather man on tv rather than my own eyes. My eyes were telling me there was a bad storm on the horizon right on my path. The weather man said it was only a light shower. After getting 6 miles out if town and being 8 miles from anywhere I got enough signal to confirm that the light shower was a dark red storm which was heading my way. However it was localized enough that of I just rode 5 miles north I'd be out of the worst and into light showers.  Since Kansas is laid out in a grid it was very easy to just jump on the next road north. The next gravel road north. The next big loose gravel road north. I made it about 4 miles before the storm caught me. Luckily I had made it outside the lighting and hail so it wasn't that bad. However it turned my nice gravel road into a muddy gravel road.

At this point I had reached the next paved road heading west which was a US highway and Kansas highway combo. Mistake bidder number 3. My nice big shoulder lasted for about a quarter mile.  At which point the US highway went south and so did my shoulder. Unfortunately my traffic flying past me at 65+ mph kept heading west. So I my choices were follow the US highway south back to route for 5 miles then head 5 miles back north shortly there after, keep following this busy highway, or take a gravel road. Gravel road it is. Thankfully this one was well used or groomed cause it was nice riding. I got to the town and went straight to the cheap motel. After all that gravel I was sore and the storms were still coming.