Hopkins 4K for Cancer

June 24, 2003

"Gravel... right!"
After a relaxing day off in Topeka, we were ready and eager to hit the road. Our destination was the tiny town of Frankfort, Kansas. While we ate our usual breakfast of dry milk and cereal, we were alerted by John, our trip leader, that thunderstorms were predicted to hit in the afternoon. We were told to hurry to try to make it in no later than 2 p.m. to beat the weather. The church was a mess, with bags scattered all around the large room which had served for as our home for the last 36 hours. The fast bikers were asked if they wouldn’t mind waiting around to bid farewell as well as thank our gracious hosts who had cooked for us and arranged for us all to take in a movie over our stay. Mainly because of the mess, we as a group moved sluggishly enough--in the usual 4K fashion--that we were all able to say our goodbyes to our hosts.



Once we were out of Topeka, we saw the enormous fields of glimmering gold wheat that are typical to Kansas as well as corn as far as the eye could see. We moved steadily down the long straight road occasionally sipping water and looking down at our bike computers for speed or distance. It was a hot day in the 90’s but a refreshing crosswind cooled us down. The clear blue sky showed no sign of rain, but the day was still early and we all knew from our last ride how quickly storms can sweep by in Kansas. We came to our turn shortly before lunch and were happy to turn the same way the wind blew. To our delight we had a tailwind for once!



The flat terrain quickly became very hilly shortly after turning but we pushed through with few breaks in an attempt to avoid the inclement weather. The rural farmland showed no towns or cities so our lunch was in the middle of nowhere. As a matter of fact, we were lucky some kind farmers let us use their lawn and eat under their tree for our daily picnic. At lunch, we learned that Josh had taken his first fall of the trip and was showing off his bruises and scabs as if they were badges of honor--very tasteful.



It was past noon now and we were running late. We were all quite sure that we wouldn’t make it in by 2 p.m. However a crystal clear sky alleviated our worries and made us scratch our heads. The afternoon ride was long and uneventful as the rolling hills continued for the duration to Frankfort. We arrived in the tiny town after four and headed towards the local Catholic church while looking up at the sky which remained cloud-free. The church very generously paid for us all to swim in the local pool where we played Marco-Polo (substituting those words for other phrases with which we've become familiar, such as "Hopkins... 4K", "Gravel...right!", and "To San Fran... cisco!")



The members of the church were also kind enough to have a BBQ for us. We played a game of “Mafia” and stayed up laughing and having a good time well into the evening.