Today my Sweetie had a day off from work, so I took the day off, too, so we could go ride the Gary L. Haller National Recreation Trail (Mill Creek Streamway) in Kansas City. The paved trail is about 15 miles long and only crosses one road! I would highly recommend this trail! It did have a few hills on it, but all in all they were not bad. (There were a few that would classify as "bad" LOL ~~H)
We chose a good day to ride as there was not much traffic on the trail. I am guessing on a weekend this trail gets pretty busy. We started on the northern end of the trail by the Kansas River. The trail runs from the south side of the river to the south following along Mill Creek all the way to the Mahaffie Stage Coach park in Olathe. We passed under 87th, 95th, HWY 10, Prairie Star, College Blvd and up to 119th street.
When we were about 12+ miles into our bike ride(Meaning we were 12+ miles from our car :) ) one of the pedals on my bike decides it has had enough and breaks into pieces all over the sidewalk! Seems as my wife has said to me several times... I am just an accident waiting to happen! :) A nice couple just happened to be walking by and they told us there was a Target about 2 miles up the road we just happened to be by. So we walked our bikes over to the shopping center they told us about. Turned out on our side of the road there was a Dick's Sporting goods so we went there and were back in Business! Problem solved! We grabbed lunch/dinner as it was mid afternoon after our hour+ detour, at Chipolte and headed back down the trail towards our car! Luckily no more accidents on the way back!
S~~
So, I had mentioned as we walked the bikes the 2+ miles from the pedal-breaking location, hoping that whatever store we found would even carry bike pedals..... that if they didn't, plan B would be to call a taxi to haul us and our folding bikes back to our car 12 miles away. To which husband replied..... "I would call Randy first and see if he was available." (Randy being a friend of his that lives in the area). But we found a Dick's Sporting Goods store and got the new pedal installed and had no need to call either a taxi or Randy. But now for the hilarious part..... after being home for a couple of hours now, hubby checks his phone and sees a text message. From Randy. Who we had never contacted. It says...... "Are you bicycling on 119th and I-35?" What are the odds that in KC (a sizeable city, yes?), the friend that we had intended to call if need be, drove by the exact spot that we were and even recognized us????? That totally cracks us up. The time of the text message tells us that he saw us after we had fixed the pedal and had our mid afternoon lunch and were on our way back to pick up the trail again to head back to our car. I asked hubby, do you think if he had seen us at the point we were pushing our bikes, he would have stopped? "Probably." So, there you go. My faith in humanity is restored. And thank you, Randy, for recognizing us and asking about us. That made our day! :)
~~ H
Our start time and temperature
Good thing we got this picture at the start of the ride because it was dark by the time we got back!
Uh...... Houston, we have a problem..........
Yep, that's a problem.
But after a 2-3 mile walk, we found our mecca. Thank you, Dick's Sporting Good. Thank you, $8 pair of new pedals!
Installation.
Mid afternoon lunch on the patio at the Chipotle in the same shopping center as Dick's. This, coincidentally, was the very same Chipotle where we first, 7 or 8 years ago, discovered the culinary delight that IS Chipotle. It was like returning to our roots. Only this time we pushed our bikes there in 46 degree weather. LOL
And I suck at selfies. :)
And so husband says "Hey, we need to stop and take a picture of us in front of Bass Pro Shop." All right. And this would have been along 119th Street, just after we had come off the I-35 bridge.
Randy, I probably got a picture of you driving by in one of these shots bcause I think this is where you saw us!
Here would be one of those "not bad" hills.
And here's the handsome dude after he had just ascended another one of them.
The picture doesn't show it well, but the crest of it just drops off into oblivion.
Nope, it wasn't a bad hill. It was a bee-otch hill.
There were several low water crossings along the trail.
Here is one of them.
The view of Mill Creek from the middle of the crossing.
Pilons at bottom of this picture are the ones visible in the picture above.
Just a pretty view of the trail.
This was a neat marker in the sidewalk with the name of the trail
and the dates it was started (1988) and completed (2000).
Closeup of the 1988 part of the marker. Just because 1988 was a good year.
Another view of the trail
A convergence of American transportation: Interstate highways, train tracks and bike paths.
The trail goes under the train track in a couple of spots in tunnels like this.
The trail crosses over Mill Creek multiple times. This particular bridge was actually the original old road bridge that is now utilized for the bike path
The old road bridge now used for the bike path with the new road bridge in the background. And my bike. Because it's a cool looking bike. My spoke reflectors are awesome.
This guy's slow mode of transportation is a Montague folding bike.
This guy's fast mode of transportation is a 1985 Dominator Mustang.
This guy needed his picture taken in front of the "GLH" sign because in fast car world that means
"Go Like Hell."
Sun was going down.
Lots of neat bridges on this trail.
Railroad bridge in the background
The bike bridge and railroad bridge
At the end of the ride, on the island in the Kansas River. It was darker than the picture makes it look, but as you can see from the camera flash, the reflective tape of our Hi-Vis apparel definitely works!
Our ending time (6:52 pm) and temperature. And you'll never convince me that it was actually 2 degrees warmer than when we had started out 7 hours earlier. Because it felt about 15 degrees colder.
This morning since my sweetie had to work I got up and drove over to check out a possible trail called the Black Hawk Trail in 110 Mile Park on the north side of Pomona Lake. When I got there I discovered it to be mainly a trail for horses not bicycling. It was also too muddy to ride today. I walked a ways down it just to give it a look see. About 100 yards into it I heard a shotgun go off about 100 yards away from me. That's when I decided to scrap the walking plan and head back to the car.
So you can scratch the Black Hawk Trail off our list!
Entrance to the BlackHawk Trail
About 100 yards in looking back towards the entrance
About 100 yards in looking on down the trail.
From there I drove up to Topeka to the Kaw River Park Trail. We had walked a little of it a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to check it out. It is not a very long trail, and has some washout areas that you want to keep an eye out for. I started up at the top. If you take Wanamaker past the roundabout north of I-70 you will eventually come to a Park Ranger office with parking. The trail heads of to the Northwest from there into the trees and winds its way down the river bluff towards the Kaw/Kansas River. You will definitely get a workout on this trail.
Eventually I ran into what appears to be the remnants of a road that lead up to the old Menninger Foundation building. Thus my title you gotta be Nuts to ride there! :D
(You realize that's politically incorrect, right dear.......??????) ~~H
Menninger Psychiatric Hospital - Abandoned
Looking back down the hill on the road that lead up to the Menninger Building
It was quite a climb up to the parking lot so I sat there awhile catching my breath. Then I turned around and headed back down. I turned off on what looked like a single track mountain bike trail about 1/3 of the way back down the hill. This trail followed the tree line back around to where I had parked my car. I got off and walked my bike several times as the trail was a bit muddy and there were obstacles setup for more advanced MTB riders.
I then rode back down the first hilly section of the regular trail. Then turned around and rode back up the hill. You can see my course in the below map from MapMyRide.com
From north trailhead near the KS Turnpike tollbooth on K-10, south to Clinton Parkway and back.
This ride has hills! There were many changes in elevation up and down and it gave us quite a workout! We were also riding into a pretty stiff wind as we headed south! Excuses Excuses :) S~~
This was a taxing but nice little ride. We just don't have hills like this in the town we live in. Our reward was to eat at a neat little Mexican restaurant to celebrate my birthday.
We decided to try the Prairie Spirit Trail today. It was a blustery day with a pretty brisk northwest wind and temperatures in the mid 50s. We questioned the conditions and whether we wanted to commit to such from the get-go. This trail is actually part of the Kansas State Park system and requires a fee to use outside the city limits of the 3 largest towns on the trail (Ottawa, Garnett, and Iola). So, our plan was to start at the Old Depot Museum on the north end of Ottawa and ride the 2 or 3 miles of free paved trail within the city limits of Ottawa and then make our determination if we wanted to pay our $3.50 per person daily use fee and continue out into the open prairie. Once on the south edge of Ottawa, we decided we would like to continue on and see what it was all about. Not knowing how the pay stations worked exactly, we were prepared with our $7.00 correct cash in the bike bag, and we figured we would just drop our money in a locked box. But here's a tip: You're also going to need a pen. Which we did not have. In our bike bag. You're going to need a pen because the envelope that you put your money into, which has a permit on the envelop flap that you tear off and keep with you as proof of payment, has all kinds of information on it that you have to fill out, with things such as name, address, car model, license plate number, mother's maiden name, blood type, name of your first pet, and if you have ever been convicted of a felony Ok, maybe I exaggerate on a few items on that list, but you get the idea. We had our cash ready but we didn't have a pen. Our writing utensils were in our car at the depot, 3 miles back. So, we stuffed a couple of the blank envelopes into our bike bag alongside the awaiting $7.00 cash and absent pen, and continued out into the wild, hoping that if we were pulled over by the trail police, they would take mercy on our pen-less plight, especially with the incontrovertible proof of intent to pay, evidenced by said exact change accompanying the unfilled-out-envelopes riding in our bags. There's our rebel nature once again rearing it's head. :) But it was Sunday. And trail police must not work on Sundays, as we were not pulled over once. LOL
~~ H
The squirrels heckled us for not paying and probably tattled on us on Monday! S~~
The trail between Ottawa and Princeton was fairly well tree lined so we were fairly sheltered from the strong wind out of the West Northwest that was blowing steadily. It turned out to be a beautiful day for a ride. We rode all the from the old depot on the North end of Ottawa to the southern end of Princeton and then back to the Depot. The ride was 20.10 miles in total. We had planned to reward ourselves with dinner at Ponchos Mexican restaurant, but it was closed, so instead we went to Applebees.
S~~
Our starting point
Rocking that balaclava!
Very nicely maintained trail.
Well ...... except for that. LOL
Onward past the obstruction.
There's your rules and regs, folks......
He looks like a grumpy Gus here, but he really wasn't.
Looking north toward I-35
Day use fee: $3.50 per person per day. For 2014 and beyond, we will be buying the $12.50 per person annual pass.
Applebee's spinach and artichoke dip. Nom, nom, nom.
On this cold, blustery Saturday afternoon we decided to try out the MacLennan Park.trail on the grounds of Cedar Crest, the Kansas "governor's mansion" (the guv-nuh doesn't really live there, to my knowledge.) So, we unloaded and unfolded our trusty Montague bikes and headed west along a limestone path up a hill in a pasture following along 6th street. And then we got, um, misplaced. The limestone trail we had been following for the MacClennan trail just ended abruptly at the road that took us into Kaw River State Park. There was a map board there that we tried to read to figure out exactly where we were supposed to go to continue on the MacClennan trail, but it wasn't terribly helpful. So, we headed up the paved road, wondering if perhaps it would connect us back to our limestone MacClennan path. And it did not. We ended up in the forest on very narrow hiking/mountain bike trails. And then we wound around in there pushing our bikes in circles for well over 30 minutes. We happened upon two very helpful ladies at various points and pitifully asked them for directions which they happily gave us and we were just as happily not very successful at following once they continued on their way. But we finally emerged from the forest and I am chalking this day up to a biathlon of both hiking AND biking. So, we finally found the limestone MacClennan trail again and were finally able to actually ride our bikes. And after all that hullaballo trying to find it, our opinion of it was....... meh. Most definitely, just meh. We both decided we have done it once, we won't seek it out to ride a second time.
~~H
We took this picture before we started our ride. Looking at it now, we are still not sure exactly where we went. LOL
Headed up the hill following the trail along 6th street.
And this is where things went wrong. Maybe this is the way? Negatory.
Down in the forest near the river, near the railroad track. This was just at the beginning of the forest adventure, though. The 30 minutes of hiking/bike pushing along narrow rocky trail was still ahead of us. Woohoo!
(No, we are not mountain bikers -- don't judge us.)
The point where we broke free once again!!!!
In front of Cedar Crest
The pond down near I-70 that the trail circles.
The path around said pond.
The one-time original driveway, we presume. Pretty and tree-lined.
There was an exercise station at one point too, but we're not that hardcore.
Daughter had a cross country meet in Council Grove tonight, so after that was over, we hopped on the Flint Hills Nature Trail for a short ride. As it was 6:15 when we got started, we were only able to go about 5 miles before we had to turn around and head back while we still had daylight. Didn't take many pictures as we were just trying to get some miles in in the short time we had, but we managed to snap a few.
We had parked our car at the Saddlerock Cafe, which by the large number of other cars parked there before our ride, was doing a very brisk suppertime business. When we got back to our car after our ride at 7:15, we were hungry and ready for something to eat ourselves and our plan had been to eat there, but when we saw that they closed at 7:30 we didn't want to make them stay late just to feed us, so we decided we would give them a try the next time we rode the trail from Council Grove.
~~H
This was our turnaround point. Neat old school/church sans roof.
Harvest time, and boy was he kicking up the dust. And boy could you smell it! :)
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