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Thursday 15th July 2004

Newton Athletic Park to Sterling (Sterling Lake Campsite). 57 miles on route, plus a few off route (total about 64 miles). On awaking, we appeared to be surrounded by lawnmowers. They were everywhere. It turned out that in the dark, under the influence of a wheat beer or two, we had camped next to the lawnmower maintenance shed. A bit of a shock at 6am in the morning. They start early here. We got going - and headed off route to Hutchinson to see the Cosmosphere. A busy road to Hutchinson, with the usual rural scenery of fence posts and cattle, plus a few nodding donkeys (pumping water, I suppose?). Cosmosphere charged us $8.50 approx inc. tax to see an interesting collection. Bit of a shock after the free Smithsonian museums in Washington DC. Excellent section on the human background to rocketry - the concentration camp victims who died in the tunnels of Nordhausen, building V2 rockets (the 'V' in V1 and V2 is for 'vengeance' after the allied ing raids on Germany). More died building the rockets that they killed in England when the landed! Also nice to see the Apollo 13 module that came back after the fire that nearly caused disaster out in space. There is a huge blackbird spyplane in the lobby. The panniers got left with the volunteer ladies at the information desk. I suppose the museum is a bit of a "boy's own facts" place - gigantic speeds, distances, temperatures. But the bit about 2nd World War rocketry was for me an interesting bit of history. Fortunate that didn't achieve his aim of building a rocket that could hit the USA! Ploughed on from Hutchinson to Nickerson, part of the time we were lost but steering by the sun (! oh dear), and finally we got to Sterling, on a hunch that the place was big enough for a pool, and it was, and we swam and pitched up, and went for a cheap pizza in town. Eating pizzas we met a reporter from the local paper (which I was reading at the time), and her brother, Ray Williford, who kindly then transferred pictures from my camera onto CD. So then there were pictures. Well, not at the first library I came to because "the lady at the desk hasn't got the password/key to unlock the CD drive on this computer!". Anyway, thanks to Ray and to Newton Presbyterian College for their kindness and technology!

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