Day 56-Cyclists Get in Free!

I sure wanted to sleep longer this morning. It doesn’t help that we just entered the Central Time Zone yesterday, so it is dark in the morning until about 6:30. I had set my alarm for 5:30, but fell back asleep until 6:00. Even though today was a very short day, we wanted to take advantage of the cooler morning temps (and slightly less wind). We left Scott City at 7:30.

Humid feeling Kansas morning sunrise. 

Our destination of Dighton was only 24 miles away. One thing we noticed, was there were no longer cattle trucks. Apparently, the feed lots were before Scott City, and along the perpendicular highway in Scott (a bazillion cattle trucks went by the park last night). I’m sure that might change down the road, but for now, it was nice to not have them. 

We rolled into Dighton at 10:15. We scoped out the town for someplace to have second breakfast. At the other end of town, we found the Bowling Alley and Diner. It was open (the diner part) and we were able to get second breakfast. There was a group of older ladies who looked like they were having their weekly/monthly coffee klatch. 

We rolled back to the City Park. There is a swimming pool! It wasn’t open, but it looked like it would open. Sure enough, about noon, a young man arrived. I asked him if the pool was going to open. He said it would open at 1:00. I told him he just made my day!

The best sight ever!

We also checked in with the Sheriff’s office to let them know we were here. I asked about the sprinklers. There were some already running. She didn’t really know the schedule, but she said she didn’t think they watered the entire park every day. We hope we’ll be okay where we are. 

Once the pool opened, we headed over for a swim. It would be $2.50, but the young man said, “Are you biking?” We said we were, and he said, “Oh, bikers don’t pay.” How awesome is that? The pool is open until 7:00. We may go back for more (or at least a shower). There are a number of town kids swimming. It’s great to see all the kid bikes parked out front. They go back to school on the 11th (curiously, the map tells us that Kansas city parks may close after the kids go back to school…hopefully, we’ll be out of Kansas by then).

Just three more days to Great Bend, and my new tire. I got notification that it has shipped. 

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow is a slightly longer day at 31 miles. It’s going to be hotter too. Sadly, we will not have a swimming pool.