I'm not sure if global warming is fact or fiction, but on June 24th, 2013 in Missouri it was a tad bit warm. One of the grocery stores was showing 90 in the shade. Out on the trail in the full sun it was at times like a Turkish sauna. I told the lady in Boonesville that I had never perspired so much in my life and I meant it. Cyclists know that in really warm weather you get to the point where it is hard work to keep drinking enough fluid to stay anywhere close to hydrated. Today it felt that as soon as I swallowed something to drink I could immediately feel it started to drip off me in the form of sweat.
Lesson learned - not recommended to do the KATY trail at the end of June. We even had a rain shower around 10 a.m. out on the trail, but that was just a brief respite before the oven got really cooking. When we'd stop for snacks people would ask us it was hot enough. As the day wore on my answers grew much terser and to the point - "its really not that bad - nothing like Death Valley or the Sahara..." I can only imagine the shock of getting out of an air-conditioned car into the blast furnace conditions of today. And from what I've been told this is normal weather for these parts. My wife commented that she can know understand and empathize with the obesity problem back east. During the day we saw almost no one out exercising, unless you count the stretch of the legs from the car to the grocery store as healthy exertion.
But I digress. Today we found contentment out on the trail before our brains were fried by the searing sun. Where I normally ride in Colorado my jaw muscles get almost as much exercise as those in my legs with shouts of "On your left!" being shouted out every thirty seconds or so. What the KATY trail lacks, at least in the western sections we've covered thus far, are crowds. Today we went miles and miles, sometimes more than an hour at a time, without seeing anyone else on the trail.There are organized group rides that do the KATY but they would have no appeal to us after being spoiled by real peace and solitude riding along the trail these last two days. It takes a different mindset to enjoy this type of quiet alone time while bicycling. Even cross country solo riders have the company of cars whizzing by two feet to their left, but on the KATY about the loudest thing you'll hear will be the birds chirping in the trees. We even startled a red deer who was standing on the trail looking the other way until we were close enough to him to suggest that he might want to move.
50 miles precisely is what we racked up from Sedalia to tonight's stopping point of Rocheport. Rocheport is a nice little town with homes immaculately kept up. It also boasts 4 restaurants, which it being Monday were all closed. Fortunately the place we are staying, the Katy Trail B&B (Bed & Bikefest is what it says on the sign) has emergency food rations in the freezer in the form of DiGiorno's self-rising pizza at the bargain price of just $5.00. The owners must know that Missourans apparently only eat Tuesday through Saturday. Better yet we are actually spending the night in a converted Caboose complete with queen size bed at one end and shower and toilet facilities at the other. In between, french doors opening onto our own personal deck, and inside old lumber plank flooring sanded and stained to the color of molasses. Needless to say it was a fight to see who got to the shower first, but tonight there will be no struggle involved in visiting dreamland. Tomorrow is a shorter day, thank goodness, with only thirty miles or so to Jefferson City.
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