Just Keep Pedaling: Date Day: Our Indian Summer day in Late December! (Indian Creek Greenway -- Leawood, KS to Kansas City, MO)

Last night with the forecast for today to make it into the 50's, we decided to find someplace to ride our bikes today. With the recent snow melt, we knew we would have to find a paved trail. I made the suggestion that we make it a date day and go to KC, find a new restaurant to eat at and a new bike trail to ride. So my sweetie grabbed the map of Kansas City bike trails we got at the meeting of the Flint Hills Trail Board last month, and tossed it at me.(Just about landed in his bowl of salsa when I did....... ~~H)

Forecasts of warmer weather this time of year usually brings with it higher winds, so I looked for a trail that I knew would be somewhat sheltered from the winds. I quickly spotted one on the border between Kansas and Missouri that follows Indian Creek as it makes its way toward the Little Blue River. It crosses through the towns of Leawood, KS and Kansas City, MO. The trail is known as Indian Creek Greenway.

Now we had to decide upon a new restaurant to try. We both are Mexican food fans so I did a quick search of blogs for a recommended restaurant in the area we wanted to go ride. One that kept getting mentioned was Dos De Oros. It is at the intersection of Blue Ridge Blvd and Holmes Rd.
Link to the Dos De Oros Website

Saturday morning, we awoke, loaded the bikes and packed the car. I had to return my handlebar extensions to my bike as I had moved them to our indoor rider to make it more comfortable. (A permanent set for the trainer bike is on the way from Amazon as we speak. ~~H)

My sweetie made the 1-1/2 hour drive pass faster by busily working on a project she has planned for her bike helmet this summer. (Here's part of it. Any ideas? LOL ~~H)

As we were driving we noted that in the shadowed areas that not all the snow had melted and began to wonder if our ride would be entirely ice/snow free...

We arrived at Dos De Oros right around 12:30 and as we entered were quickly teleported to heart of OL' MehEECo. This was truly authentic Mexican food! I got four soft tacos and my sweetie got 2 tamales, we also got some chips and guacamole. I traded a taco for one of her HOT tamales. Everything was Yummy Yummy in our Tummies!

~~S

H takes over the narrative: We headed over to the Leawood Aquatic Center parking lot, one of the trailheads of the Indian Creek Greenway.

Here was our weather conditions:

The trail was seeing pretty heavy usage from this trailhead today. Cyclists, families with kids, exercisers, people with dogs (never see anyone walking a cat, now do you? Hmmmmm........) (~~S Actually we did on Grant's trail in STL if you remember Sweetie :) ) Got our bikes out of the car, realized that we did still remember how to unfold them and get them into riding position again after a few months of not having done so.

The trail had many slushy, snow packed, and/or icy spots along the entire 10 miles that we rode, but it was not impassable. We just took it slowly. We weren't out to win any races, and since it took us 1-1/2 hours at an average speed of 6.4 mph to cover that 10 miles, that was pretty obvious!!

There were also large portions of the trail that were completely clean and dry.

We crossed the state line from Kansas into Missouri under the State Line Road bridge, but alas, there was no painted line for us to photo-op with one foot in each state. Sad face. Here's the best I could do.

Over on the Missouri side we did photo-op this sign. We would have taken it on the side that said "Welcome to Missouri", but some goober had spray-painted graffiti on it.

Shortly after crossing into Missouri, you encounter the spot where the historic Watts Mill used to operate on the Indian Creek.

There's the original millstone.

Rode on a few more miles, still meeting many people out enjoying the the beautiful day(~~S and even some fishermen on the creek!) and utilizing the trail, just like us. People were very friendly, many warning of "Ice ahead", so we returned the favor to people we passed, too.

Back to the car, we got everything packed back up, found an unlocked shelter house bathroom (bless you, City of Leawood) to change out of our damp, sweaty clothes (because warm and dry feels wonderful in the depths of December, yes it does.)

In discussing our supper plans, we both determined that we weren't particularly hungry right then, but at the same time, neither of us wanted to have to make supper when we got back home. We decided we would see how hungry we felt at the town halfway home, an hour down the road.

Beautiful sunset as we headed westerly towards home

As we approached Ottawa, the halfway point, we decided we were ready to eat now, so we Googled "Ottawa Kansas Italian" and it gave us two options, right next door to each other, just a few blocks off where we would be passing through Ottawa anyway. We chose the one that had 3 reviews on Yelp, giving it a rating of 4-1/2 stars out of 5, Bella Cucina.

http://s3-media4.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/g8lXjXltscV6KQgXWqb8bQ/l.jpg

What a wonderful little restaurant with great ambience in an old downtown building. Sometimes it's just nice to class things up and get away from the chain restaurants. I am admirer of all things girly and pretty and the interior definitely fit those descriptions.