I slept pretty well, only waking up once in the night to zip up my sleeping bag. Around 5:30 I was laying there sort of half awake when I was fully roused from sleep by a WOOSH, and then I was greeted with a flash of fire, which turned out to be Jesse using his canister stove to light the fire in the pit. I had already been debating getting up, so I guess that was the sign that it was time.
The sun hadn't come up yet, so it was still dark with a bit of a night chill. The fire was a nice place to wake up and start thinking about breakfast. Soon after I got up I saw Dave shivering and making his way to the fire. We learned he had not slept well at all, because he didn't have a sleeping bag(or any blanket/quilt). I felt bad for him, but who goes camping and doesn't bring a sleeping bag? This was the mystery of the morning as we warmed up by the fire.
Breakfast for me was the beef stroganoff meal by mountain house, and to be fair, it was terrible. The small amount of flavor it had was not tasty. It's only saving grace was that I needed the calories, so I ate it anyway.
After breakfast Dave decided he was going to go home, because he didn't want to spend another night with no sleeping bag. Brad ended up convincing him that they could ride back to Emporia together and get an extra sleeping bag and then they could meet us at the next camp spot later in the day.
So we headed in opposite directions and planned to meet up later.
The ride from Olpe lake to our camp destination in the Flinthills was only another 15 or so miles, so again it was a nice straightforward ride. Just like the night before, we were greeted with clear skies and a generous amount of sunshine.
Because we camped on private land owned by Jesse's family, we had to take some farm trails through cattle land to get to our spot. The cows weren't as excited as we were, but we tried not to scare them and gave them time to move away from us. We were also lucky that there was a small river running through the property, so we were able to filter some new drinking water.
Ater we filled our water supple we did some exploring, hung out, and ate lunch while we waited on the other guys to show up. We decided to save the trek to the top of the hill until they arrived, so we could experience it as a group.... plus Jesse planned to only make one trip up there, since its a fairly steep hike through tall grass.
Once Brad and Dave showed up it was obvious that Dave wasn't in a good mood from not sleeping much the night before, so we told him it might be a good idea if he set up his hammock in some trees near the bottom of the hill and took a nap. He happily obliged and we made our way up the hill.
Once we got to the top it was clear that this had to be our camping spot. The original plan had been to camp near the river, but Brad and I were both pretty excited about carrying all our stuff and camping at the top. The photo really doesn't do any justice to how steep the hill actually is.
Some more cows came to greet us on our second trip up the hill. Jesse had offered 100 bucks to whoever could make it to the top of the hill without putting a foot down. We gave it a valiant effort, but neither of us made it.
Our afternoon pretty much looked like this. Just a group of dudes hanging out staying cool in the shade and relaxing. Just before dinner we went down to check on Dave and help him get his stuff up the hill, so he could join us. This time I had the Mountain House chicken and rice meal, which was a vast improvement over the beef stroganoff I had eaten for breakfast. The guys had also brought out stuff to make s'mores, so we had an awesome dessert as well.
So part of the deal with Brad riding back into Emporia with Dave was that they were going to drive out to meet us at the farm. Of course Brad brought his bike in the truck, but they also brought out a lot more gear. Which is the real problem when Dave decided he wanted to go home after dinner, so Brad had no choice but to leave as well since he couldn't carry all his stuff home on his bike. That is the short version of the story, but we felt really bad for Brad since he was super excited about our camping spot.
We ended up going to sleep around 9:30 or so, but I was awoken around midnight from a direct rain hit right between the eyes. The forecast said there wasn't supposed to be any rain, but I guess a quick storm blew in on us. I jumped out and threw on my rain fly and was back in my sleeping bag before Jesse was even done attaching his. The radar at the time was showing we should expect more rain, but after those few drops it didn't rain anymore. It didn't take long to be back asleep.
Day 3 started basically the same as day 2, except when I heard a WOOSH I knew what it was already. Then I noticed something small moving on my bug screen right above my face, which turned out to be a rogue tick on the inside of my tent. I had to unzip my tent and ask Jesse for a cup so I could be sure I got ahold of the tick without it falling on my face...... I ended up looking pretty pathetic trying to scoop the tick off the bug screen, but I got it.
Breakfast was quick, consisting of some breakfast bars and coffee. Then we worked on getting out gear all packed up while making sure there weren't any more ticks.
We made our way back to Emporia following the same route we took getting out there. Some good hills, sunshine, and more cows.
Then some dog started to follow us. We made a lot of efforts to get her to turn back home or at least stop following us, but none of them worked. We even lost here at a few spots when she saw other dogs or chased something into the bushes, but she always kept catching up to us. We ended up stopping at almost every house for about 6 miles trying to find someone that recognized the dog, but no one answered their doors, so we ended up with a companion for almost 10 miles. Eventually when we got into Olpe she left us and went to a house. So we headed into Emporia.
And just like that another trip was over. It was a nice relaxing trip into the flint hills to hang out with friends and ride our bikes.
