Today the youngest Grandson Blake (9 years old) and I rode our local rail-to-trail the Prairie Sunset. This was his first time riding a rail-to-trail. We rode from Garden Plain to Goddard and back for a total of 13 miles. He did great and seemed to enjoy it.

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Kansas's own Prairie Spirit Trail was named the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's August 2011 Trail of the Month and also added to their Rail-To-Trail Hall Of Fame.
Read about it here.

We rode the trail in 2002. I think it's time we ride it again. Maybe this fall.

Since Nebraska was a no-go, today along with our Daughter we took a short trip to Hutchinson, KS (aka the Salt City) to ride bikes around town and on the Jim Martinez Sunflower Trail. We stopped at Carl's for lunch. Rode around 12 miles. More on the Jim Martinez Sunflower Trail from our first time riding it here.

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Today we drove an hour and a half to the town of Lindsborg, Kansas. From there we rode about 4.5 miles up to Coronado Heights and back. Lindsborg was settled in the spring of 1869 by a group of Swedish immigrants. Coronado Heights receives its name from the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who visited central Kansas in 1541. Supposedly he climbed this hill looking for the Native American community of Quivira, where he was told "trees hung with golden bells and ... pots and pans were beaten gold."
Once back in Lindsborg we rode the 2.5 mile Välkommen Trail which is a paved rail-to-trail. There are several historical signs along this trail. There are plans to extend the trail to Mcpherson which will become the Meadowlark Trail.
In Lindsborg we walked around town and had lunch at Jalisco which was good but they don't serve alcohol.
We rode a total of about 14 miles. I believe the temperature was only in the 50s, not the upper 60s as predicted. Nova got the polka dot jersey on this ride. GPS track one way here.

Rode the Prairie Sunset this afternoon out and back (16 miles). Extremely windy but the wind was out of the South and the trail runs East-West. Plus a lot of the trail is protected by a berm. Wasn't as much fall color as we'd hoped for but still a nice ride. I noticed 3 miles of the trail have been "adopted". I don't recall seeing these signs the last time we rode it.

More on the Prairie Sunset trail here.









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This morning we rode the Arkansas River Path out and back from S Broadway and the river up to 21st N and Maize. It was a little over 25 miles. Coming back we had a pretty good wind against us. After the ride we went and had lunch and then stopped for frozen Custard at a place called Freddy's. Freddy was apparently a bike rider.






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Tonight I decided to go for a short ride outside of town on a hybrid bike I recently acquired. Fields of milo, corn and soy beans, cows, barns, windmills, hay, hedge rows, hedge apples, oil wells and a animal carcass are just some of what I saw. Photos and video from my camera phone...














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Visit my Prairie Sunset trail page here.

This morning we got around early (early for me) to go ride the Prairie Sunset Trail just outside of town before it got to hot. This rail-to-trail is now open for 8 continuous miles. It was a bit overgrown but still a nice ride. Spotted a young deer, a turtle, lots of bugs, bunnies and birds. The temperature was in the mid 80s.
Photos here.

This is our 2nd time to ride this trail. (Here) is the first.

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