Planes, trains and automobiles...

Day 137
7-22-2006
Started: Red Bridge Rd., MO
Finished: Edgerton, KS
Today's Miles: 31.5
Total Miles:1945.0

After tiptoeing around the Cole house early this morning, trying not to wake anyone at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, we gathered our packs along with some burritos Donna had wrapped for us to take with us and we were off to "discover" Kansas. Tom Cole had given us a little bit of history last night about Johnson County, the second richest county in the country, and the county we were walking through when we crossed the state line into Kansas this morning! That's right, we entered Kansas this morning and as we crossed the state line we both recited lines from the infamous movie "The Wizard of Oz". We always hold hands as we walk into a new state and this morning was no different. We are psyched to be in Kansas, regardless of all the jokes people have been telling us in the past week about Kansas in August. Once in Johnson County Kansas our route definitely screamed money. Very large homes with very large yards with very many cars, everything big and expensive. We were actually quite surprised to see that for about ten miles of walking this morning the McMansions were endless. In any case, we enjoyed our walk, chatting about life and everything in between. We had a good portion of our hike today in a huge business district called Corporate Woods. Seeing as how it was a Saturday the huge parking lots were all basically empty and the many small eateries were not overrun with the weekday craziness that we could picture being the norm. We enjoyed following in the footsteps and wagon swales of many early travelers that journyed to the west using one of the three frontier trails that we followed today, the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail and the California Trail. We will be following the general route of the Santa Fe Trail all the way across Kansas. From 1821 to 1846, the Santa Fe Trail was an international route for American and Mexican traders. In 1848 the Mexican American War ended and New Mexico was added to the United States. The trail became a National road for commercial and military freighting, stagecoach travel, immigration and mail service. It was replaced over time by the westward expanding railroad which reached Santa Fe in 1880. Freight wagons heading for Santa Fe carried tons of trade goods, boxes of tools, cookware and other supplies needed on the frontier. On a return trip the trader might transport wool, mules, coins, silver bars or gold dust as payment for goods sold. The trail was heavily used by immigrants and gold prospectors. Their wagons, pulled by oxen or mules, carried enough food and neccessities to last several months. We were still in the reaches of a big city most of the day so we could feel some of the hustle and bustle aspect of people rushing to and fro' but the fact that it was a Saturday had the hustle turned down a notch. We got an early start today so we had plenty of time to take a long lunch break and still get a load of miles in. We enjoyed a restaurant meal in the air conditioning, although it still seems like it's really not that hot out when compared to the 114 heat index of the other day. We enjoyed watching a few stunts in the air above us once we were back out into farm land, and this time it wasn't one of the many hawks we've been seeing lately. It was stunts from a Saturday afternoon air show from a nearby airport. It completed the planes part of our trains, planes and automobile afternoon. The automobile part we are getting pretty good at, you know... car dodging. We walk some fairly busy roads every now and then and today was no different, we did have a good shoulder today though. The trains part of the day was a bit overwhelming. We probably saw as many trains today as we have the entire trip, and we have seen a lot of trains on this trip! From what we've heard we will see a lot more while here in Kansas. It makes sense, it was the onset of the train that took over where the Santa Fe Trail left off. The trains move quick too, so you won't find us doing any train dodging! As we made our way into the up and coming town of Gardner, or the already perfect but about to be commercialized by the planned building of a Wal-Mart town of Gardner, depending on how you look at it, we made great progress in our coin hunt. The rumble strips on the side of the shoulder make for perfect coin collectors, so after many finds Sheri now has $3.22, not bad, but she is still chasing Randy's $4.24. Speaking of chasing, once we realized how well the grooves in the shoulder housed coins we started jockeying for position. The person who was walking in front had a better view of the next groove, so with each find, as one of us would stop to retrieve the coin the other would run ahead so as to get a better chance at finding the next one. If anyone was watching us we probably looked pretty funny. O.K. we definitely looked funny, but we did find well over a dollar between the two of us, so positioning was crucial! We realized, once we reached Gardner, that the town of Edgerton was only a few miles away, and we had enough water and daylight so we continued hiking. A mile or two outside of Gardner we were quickly reminded that we had put in a big mile day. It's as if your feet have a built in odometer and when it gets to 30 miles your feet head to the time clock and punch out! It really is like hitting a wall, the aches and pains in the bottom of your feet demand attention. They feel as if they have been working overtime since about 25 miles on and at 30, they go on strike. We walked through the wall though and when we reached Edgerton we were ready to be off our feet. We lucked out when a nice local woman who happened to be sitting on her front porch asked us where we were hiking to. We told her where we had hiked from and asked if she knew of anywhere nearby that we could pitch a tent for the night. She sent us just down the street to a woman named Rita. Rita worked at the town hall so she knew where we should and shouldn't try to camp. When we informed Rita of what we were doing her daughter Dana jumped into "trail angel" action. Dana took us down the street another block to her house where she allowed us to tent, shower, use the bathroom facilities and fill our water bags. She even filled a large bucket with ice and water and gave us two cups to take out to our tent for the night so we could enjoy cold drinks. Dana is really sweet and we can't thank her enough for all she has done. Tonight we will attempt to count sheep, but more than likely we will count trains. Dana lives alongside the railroad and so far they have been on an every twenty minutes or so schedule. All part of a trains, planes and automobile day on a walk across America.

Your Friends on the ADT,
Randy and Sheri
Follow our Journey at www.treckusa.com