Day 7 Wichita KS to Kansas City KS

Friday June 17th

We began the final leg of the 2016 Power Tour at around 8:30 this morning.  We traveled through some beautiful country on the back roads of Kansas. 

 

This picture doesn't do it justice but here are some "Amber waves of grain" from American's heartland.

There was a lot of open road today, some of the towns seemed pretty far apart.  Even in the middle of no where there were people out waiting and watching for all of us to come by.  In one area they had 2 signs that made me laugh.  "Car Gazers Ahead" and "We still plan with old cars too".

We went through Strong City KS, a very small town that was completely over whelmed by the number of cars coming through.  It took us 30 to 45 minutes just to get through.  A lot of cars were getting hot since it was such a long wait and several had to pull off the road. 

There was another really long back up trying to get through the next town, about 20 miles down the road.  While all the cars were waiting to get into town, a lot of people were getting out of their cars taking pictures, getting drinks, talking to the next car, it was like a parking lot except we were on the highway. 

This guy was following us all morning.

We stopped in Council Grove KS for lunch at a little sandwich shop.  It was a good time to let the vehicles cool off a little.

Sam & Ashley started having car trouble again shortly after that.  We stopped in Stanton KS at Carl's Tire & Lube.  Those guys were great and really tried to help and loaned him some tools and stuff to work on the suburban.  Since it took a while we decided to go over to the highway instead of sticking to the route.  Sam ended up not making it to the venue and had to get his truck towed.  I hate it that they didn't have a good Power Tour experience! 

We finally made it to the venue, the Kansas Speedway, around 4:30.  We checked in and were able to get to the venders that we needed to see and then collect our "Long Hauler" awards. We left the venue around 6. 

We were completely exhausted and melted from the heat, no shade and not much breeze when we arrived at our hotel around 6:30. 

After cooling off we went to a local place near the hotel for dinner and then stopped at Freddy's Custard for dessert.

This is David's favorite car in our hotel parking lot tonight.

It has been a long, tiring week but it has also been a wonderful trip!!