Day 32, Milo Plains and Spy Planes

Our easy day today was only 42 miles, which we would love to say we cruised through but changes of the winds slowed us down a bit. The slightly off-route bike shop here in the Hutch, as this town is affectionately called by its residents, is the only bike shop anywhere near where we pass in the entire state of Kansas, so we stopped in. A few fixed squeaks later, we set up indoor camping again in the basement of another Lutheran church (we miss the fire station!) and went to the movies! But not just any movie. We visited the Kansas Cosmosphere, which houses the country's largest collection of space memorabilia outside of the Smithsonian in Washington. Stephanie remarked that she had never actually been to a cosmosphere, upon which it was noted that none of the three in our small party are even sure if any other cosmospheres actually exist. So we may, in fact, have seen an imax movie today in the only cosmosphere known to mankind.

We ambled around downtown, which may have seen better days as we were discouraged by locals from bringing our bikes unless we had some really strong, sturdy locks. But there are some pockets of charm to be had in the Hutch. We ate dinner at a good, family-run mexican restaurant where we chatted with the owner. We were walking down Main Street Monkee-style and passed a tiny theater, where Andy peered in the window and promptly we were all invited in by a tech working while the cast was rehearsing for an upcoming play. This tiny Family Children's theater is a converted movie house and runs 8 shows a year. Murals on the wall depict all of the huge movie and theater characters ranging from Little Orphan Annie to Julius Caesar to Frankenstein to James Cagney to Mark Twain. The hundreds of characters lining the walls ensure that 'our cast always has an audience.' What a gem of a place to see-we wish we could see one of their productions.

Services in Kansas will become, shall we say, somewhat limited with no services for 60 miles tomorrow. This will be a good primer for the desert of Nevada but without the UFOs.