Prairie Spirit Trail, June 2014

June 13, 2014:

My friend Jim from Estes Park, Colorado and I were headed for a week long trail ride on the Katy Trail in Missouri this year and decided that as long as the Prairie Spirit Trail is on the way, we might as well do that one too. Jim was going to stay in Ottawa, and as I was coming from Shawnee, Oklahoma, I would stay at Iola and we'd meet in the middle, go back to Iola where we would spend the night and return to Ottawa the next day. It had rained a bit the day before I arrived, but Friday looked like it would be a beautiful day for a bike ride. I arrived in Iola and was ready to roll at about 8:30am, so, I bought my two day trail permit at the Iola trailhead, and headed north. The plan was that I would head north from Iola, and Jim would head south from Ottawa and we would ride until we ran into each other. And, low and behold, we did ..... Just a few miles north of Garnett.

Fortunately,this was a staged "head on" and no one was injured. It was nice to see Jim and ride the trail with him He had read my blog about an earlier ride and liked the idea of riding this one also. I also, was looking for an excuse to ride the Prairie Spirit once more, and so, here we are!

The trail was in great shape, and was a joy to ride on. We did notice a few softer spots here and there, but certainly nothing that would cause any problems. I did, however, find a bit of a headwind leaving Iola that morning, and then when I met up with Jim, he too complained of a headwind leaving Ottawa ..... hmmmm..... Sure enough when I turned south, I had a headwind going back also! A two headwind day! What luck! I got the benefit of extra training to prepare me for the Katy. We were both hungry by that time and decided to see what we could find in Garnett. We stopped at what used to be the "Coffee Loft" and found it to be a nice little place for lunch. Great sandwiches! Their special that day was sloppy joes, and they were delicious and reasonable in price. We enjoyed our lunch, and we felt a bit more like tackling the second half, so we headed out toward Iola. On the way out of town, we stopped at the depot in Garnett for a bit of sightseeing.

Both Jim and I loved the new bike racks at the depot. Nothing says Kansas like sunflowers. A wonderful design.

Jim's first ride on the trail, so we had to ride across the pontoon bridge in the south park. Really, how often does one get a chance to ride across a floating bridge .... And so, it added to our trail experience.

We left Garnett behind and headed south toward Colony, and while the wind was into our face, it wasn't too bad at all. We stopped in Colony for a breather and a soda and then continued the rest of the way to Iola. We stayed at the Americas Best Value Inn, and were pleased with the accommodations. We decided to eat right there at "The Greenery" club and enjoyed an ice cold craft beer from their extensive selection, and a tasty dinner. We turned in early, because for me, it had been a long day, driving up from Shawnee, Oklahoma and then riding 61 miles on the trail. I seemed to have gotten the benefit of a few extra miles due to not meeting up with Jim until a few miles north of Garnett, then turning around and riding it all back to Iola.

The next morning we got going early and were pleasantly surprised by a nice tailwind (this never happens to me, I'm going to enjoy today a bunch), and thought we'd stop at the new Colony diner for breakfast. We had a really good breakfast there .... their biscuits are to die for ...... and then with full stomachs headed north again to tackle the trail back up to Ottawa. Stopping in Richmond to pose my bike in front of a clever planter cut from an old tractor tire ... (I'll grab ANY opportunity to show off my bike a bit).

I set this bike up as a gravel bike, and it's very good for a trail like this also. This gave both of us a bit of a preview for the upcoming Katy.
I loved the lone fisherman on the lake as we went through Garnett again.

Jim was admiring the view from the bridge.

Stopping at Richmond, I wondered if the "customers" might be a tad confused as to where to enter?  I love these old buildings like these. The history of the area is still here to see.

Such a nice old wooden pedestrian bridge at Princeton.

After leaving Princeton, we continued on up the rest of the way to Ottawa, put our bikes in Jim's vehicle and drove the fifty miles back to Iola much quicker than we rode. After picking up my vehicle at Iola, we still had to drive to Clinton to be ready to leave Sunday morning on the bus ride to St Charles Missouri to start our Katy Trail experience. I know that both of us were glad we took the extra couple of days to ride this trail, we sure enjoyed it, and enjoyed the friendliness of the people of eastern Kansas. Wonderful trail, great people, makes for a memorable experience. I ended up with 111 miles on the trail in two days, and Jim around 102. Jim had already ridden the Flint Hills Nature Trail the day before I got there, so he had those miles also ..... he's just a glutton for punishment. A meet-up there turned out to be a great idea.