Katy Trail 2013 Day Two, Sedalia to Columbia

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

A Day Of Contradictions.

The Longest Day ..... 70 miles (I ended up with 72)

Today was not the kind of day that you would expect from a rail trail..... no, not at all. Oh, it started out normally enough, up at 5:00am, break camp, get everything put away. Gee....somehow I sure wish I'd been more organized the night before. In the dark at 5am is not the time to be trying to find your light that you should have taken out before you went to bed. So, I ended up trying to put everything away, and find my today's riding clothes all in the dark. I can guarantee you, this only happened one morning! I had to put it away wet because literally every morning there was a very heavy wet dew that covered everything almost like rain. I did finally get everything put away, and headed over to the gym that was set up for our meetings and meals, to get in line for breakfast. Once again, I was impressed at how fast the line moved, and before you know it, I was dishing up my plate. I was hungry, but the breakfast wasn't quite up to what I'd begun to expect ...... fresh fruit, (the best part) a hash brown potato casserole, some kind of baked cheesy stuff, a Krispy Kreme donut, or sweet roll (choice), juice, and coffee. It was OK and fresh, just not my normal type of breakfast. Anyway, breakfast over..... time to get on the trail at 6:30am, Bye, Liberty Park........

Back on the trail, I thought maybe I must have taken some kind of super vitamin this morning, Maybe it was the Krispy Kreme? At any rate, I was really fast! Getting under way this morning at 16-18mph! WOW! This was going to be a fast 70 miles ...... wait..... why am I now only going 9mph, and struggling. After 20 more minutes of struggling along at 9-10mph, suddenly, I managed to gain strength again, and was once again going 16-18 and sometimes even saw 20mph. Five minutes of this, and I was back to 9mph again. Hmmmmm ..... Finally, I realized, I could look ahead and see an uphill grade ...... not a real hill like you would think, but just a steady uphill grade. This, for trains, would have been a series of rollers, but for a bicyclists, it was just long uphills followed by long, but quick downhills. Plus, for the second day in a row, our wind was once again from the NE, right into us. The route between Sedalia and Boonville was the hilliest on the entire trail, a steady series of ups and downs no matter which way you run the trail. It was, however, a very pretty section of the route.

There were many, many bridges along the trail. I love old truss bridges, but I soon tired of taking pictures of them as there were so many all along the trail.

Bridges over streams like this one......

 One of several more or less complete (but inoperative) railroad semaphore signals .

On some areas of today's ride, there were open spaces where you get a glimpse of the surrounding countryside, like this pastoral farm scene.

And finally, into Boonville.

Only a very few of these trail heads like this one had water and flush toilets. Most had pit toilets, and no water. For those of you that are planning on doing the trip on your own, I would caution you to plan carefully. Water can be a real problem, stores and cafes keep their own hours, maybe not so convenient for you, but for them. Camping is not so easy to find either, and all (literally) the land on either side of the trail is private ....NO trespassing. It can certainly be done on your own, just be sure you plan carefully. Plan the ride, and ride the plan! The nice part about doing the trail with the State Park was that they took all the problems away, and all you had to worry about was pedalling and getting your mileage in. So far, the first two days of the trail you could easily ride this with any bike you brought, A road bike with 700/23's.....no problem, a tourer or hybrid with 700/35's .... no problem, mountain bike...... no problem. Run what you brung is the order of the day!. That said, it wasn't all like that. Later today will give me good reason to be glad I chose the mountain bike, and there will be several more times I found myself saying that. Almost everyone could benefit from Kevlar liners in the tires also, as I was to find out later. Kevlar belts ain't enough!

Boonville had a nicely restored depot, and a very nice Katy caboose in the original color scheme.

Both the station (gift shop) and the caboose (mini-museum) were open for viewing. This one was very nice inside.

I've always wanted to sit up in the cupola of a caboose, and this one was open with no signs to the contrary, so I slipped off my riding shoes and climbed the steps up and sat in the chair. This is the view..... first toward the front.....

and then over to the other side. The chairs face opposite one another so you could face the front of the train no matter which direction the caboose was hooked up. Can't just turn one of these around just anywhere.

The original Katy logo ...... The railroad's name came from shortening the Missouri, Kansas, Texas Railroad to just the initials MKT and later, the "M" was dropped and it became the KT ...Katy...

 Anyway, onward from Boonville, headed for Columbia, the trail became flat and tedious. The day was getting quite warm, and the miles were wearing on me. The surface of this trail drags on your tires and adds to the tedium. Leaving Boonville, we crossed the Missouri for the first time, over a very nice dedicated bike lane attached to the southbound side of the highway bridge.

And....looking upstream from the bridge, was the old Katy lift span bridge for the railroad. They are trying to gather up enough donations to save the bridge, although, I think anyway, it won't happen. Because of river barge traffic, the bridge would have to be in restored working condition ... quite a large expense, then maintained in that condition, and manned 24/7. A lot of expense for a bunch of bicyclists. Anyway, it's still here as of now....... a unique bit of history.......

I caught up with the young man crossing the bridge with the panniers on his bike (in the photo above), and we rode together and chatted for a while. He was doing the trail alone, not with our group and staying with friends along the way to St Louis. Loaded light (not camping), he said if he knew about this organized ride, he wouldn't be riding it alone. He had already found some difficulties finding food and water on some parts of the trail. We rode together for about 45 minutes and he had to stop as he was having some leg cramping. So I bade him farewell, and continued on toward Rocheport. He did let me know that Rocheport had a good place to eat, and I was ready for lunch. This part of the ride was the first of the limestone cliffs that would be our companion for most of the rest of the way.

 After many miles of this kind of riding, we came to the only tunnel on the route, the Rocheport tunnel. I took the picture from the wrong side, as the eastern portal is more scenic, but here is what I got.....

Just on the other side of the tunnel is the town of Rocheport.

A very quaint little town, not many people except today. Hardly any motor vehicle traffic to worry about here, and no need to lock your bike. There's mine behind the light pole. The building right behind my bike is the Rocheport General Store. Sandwiches and ice cold beer. When they're open. Today they were! He also was nice enough to ice my water bottles for free. The inside is like stepping back in time. At one time it was the town drug store and soda fountain, and there are several reminders of that. Makes me think of the drug stores of my youth.

Not a big food selection, deli style sandwiches, but they were good, and the beer was COLD..... and that was that! Feeling much better about everything after an hour sitting there talking with some of the other riders that showed up, and no longer feeling hungry, I pushed onward, following the path (backwards) of those other explorers, Lewis and Clark. Still headed to Columbia. The river is our companion on the right hand side, and the limestone cliffs on the left.

Along the trail was a cave purported to be used by Lewis and Clark. It's a hole in the rock......

Finally a rest stop down the way at Hindman Junction, I really wasn't going to stop, but thought I would anyway. Stopped and rinsed my bottle out that had Gatorade in it, and replaced with plain water. It was getting too hot for Gatorade, and it was making me feel a bit ill. I asked the lady at the rest stop how much further the turn off was for the Columbia Spur, and she replied ....."Why it's right behind you"..... What? I would have missed it completely as it takes off in a northwesterly direction, only later curving back around to the east. I didn't even see it at all. No signs either. If I hadn't asked, I'd have spent a lonely uncomfortable night somewhere. This trail is quite a bit different than the main trail, very loose in spots with deep loose crushed rock in some areas. It made for hard pedalling, and tricky handling. At least one person fell on this section, it wouldn't be hard to do. Besides being loose, it was twisting and winding, a pleasant change from the straight as an arrow Katy mainline.

A little further on down the road, I realized that I hadn't seen any other riders for a while, and had fears that maybe I'd missed a turn somewhere, so I stopped for a bit to see what came up the trail, on this cool little bridge.

 I stopped a rider coming the other way and asked him if he'd seen many riders going the other way. He replied that he hadn't. Just about that time, Kathy goes by (the gal with the crescent saddle) and the fellow said...... "why not follow her", so I told him I'd follow her even if she did lead me astray. But, she didn't, she led me right to the campground. Lucky me to have such good friends to take care of the old man. We did have a pretty little hill to climb, and the next morning I got a picture of it going back down. Steep, switchbacks up and over a ridge. Then it was surface streets to the school where we camped. I thought I was so late.....but there mustn't have been half a dozen riders there when I got there. It was a long day after all. Kathy and I found a nice shady spot to set up our tents, and along came Kelley and Rob after we had been there about an hour, and they set up with us. Here's Kelley and Rob...... my Peculiar friends....... You will see a lot more of them in the days to come.

Yeah...my Peculiar friends.....hmmmmmm wait....... that's just not right, it's not my friends who are peculiar, it's their town..... Well, no, that just doesn't sound right either ..... well anyway, they were from Peculiar, MO, a little town just south of Kansas City ..... there, that's better. When I mentioned that Missouri people often had a bit different way of pronouncing names, she said yeah, she liked to say "Peck-you-liar"...... OK.... chuckle, laugh even..... A good example of this is the town of Nevada, MO.... it's not pronounced like the state that Las Vegas resides in, it's pronounced Nev-AY-dah. They were the nicest couple and we had so much fun together the rest of the trip. Because there were no facilities big enough for our group at this school, dinner at Columbia was a ten dollar gift card to any of the restaurants in "The District"..... a funky little downtown area that people from San Francisco would love. Lots of little lost art shops, and cute stores, and many, many restaurants. We chose the Flatbranch Pub and Brewery. I had a taco salad, that turned out to be much more salad than taco, but it was good anyway. Two big (18 ounce) mugs of ice cold Katy Trail Pale Ale to wash it down, that was GREAT! Smooth silky, and easy on the palate, and ice cold. Just what the doctor ordered.  This was turning into a great stop. Good friends, good food, fun conversation, and great beer..... what could be better!  They took us downtown in a shuttle bus, and brought us back the same way. After we left the restaurant, we weren't sure where the shuttle stopped, so I suggested we walk the block back to where it dropped us off, and, as luck would have it, it pulled up just as we got there. Talk about good service! Our riders meeting was late that night, and by the time that was over, and we chatted for a bit more in the evening, between the miles travelled, the food, the beer, and the time of night, I could hardly hold my eyes open. So I bade farewell to my friends, and promised them.... tomorrow we ride! And that, my friends is another story!

Katy Trail 2013 Day One, Clinton to Sedalia, MO.

 

 

 

Monday, June 17, 2013

 

 

Clinton to Sedalia, 40 miles give or take; I ended up with a few tenths over.

 

 

Zero dark thirty ......... time to load baggage on the trucks, light rain falling, overcast, and a 10mph wind from the northeast, coincidentally, the same direction we'd be travelling today. Does it get any better than this? Fortunately, YES ...... These people definitely know what they are doing! Time and time again, I was just amazed at the efficiency of the staff and work crew on this ride. Tireless people who were always helpful, courteous, and always got it done right. The organization of this ride was nothing short of amazing!

 

 

 

 

The Community Center in Clinton where the ride began.

 

 

Breakfast was served inside, we had had our riders meeting Sunday night here when they explained what the first day would entail, plus, they handed out these nifty guide books that were a trail riders bible for the rest of the trip.

 

 

Chocked full of useful information, I checked mine frequently throughout the ride. Breakfast is served in the Community Center, sorry about the blurry photo, but the light wasn't the best for pictures, and nobody stood still for me.

 

 

When I had looked at photos like this of previous rides, I thought to myself ..... self.....you are in for some serious line waiting time for everything. Not so!!! They usually had two to four lines when you got to the food tables, all three hundred of us were served quickly and efficiently. Breakfast started at 6am, and no matter where I was in line, I was usually finished with breakfast and getting started on the trail by 6:30am. Breakfast today was biscuits and gravy and fresh fruit. We had fresh fruit every morning, always fresh, and always good. So, breakfast over, out and on the bike to begin my first day's journey. By the time breakfast was over, the rain had stopped and the pavement was drying, plus the clouds were moving on. Here's the Clinton trail head........

 

 

Right behind it was the first of many Katy cabooses.....

 

 

 

And our welcome to the Katy Trail State Park.... the longest and narrowest State Park in the World.

 

 

 

Gettin' goin' down the trail.

 

 

Calhoun, MO. Loved this old vine covered elevator.

 

 

After I took the picture of this, I happened to turn around, and there was an old man sitting on his porch swing behind me, so I waved and he waved, and I asked if I could come and set a spell. He said sure ..... turns out he's 84 years young, and still rides short rides on his bicycle. He lived there when the Katy was running steamers and servicing the elevator there. Interesting old man to talk with. But, time to move on, and so back on the trail. Up the road a bit was our first SAG stop, fruit (bananas and apples), water and/or Gatorade mix. You really only need to carry one water bottle on this ride, as they have a SAG stop every ten miles. Only once did I get into my second bottle during the entire ride. There was a pretty good crowd of bikes at this one, and one of the helpers I noticed was this young gentleman, helping to direct traffic and slow riders down. Wearing his official State Parks uniform shirt too.

 

 

And then it was on to Windsor where they had an open caboose that was fully restored. It was open for entry and close inspection. You don't very often get to see the inside of these things, but on this ride there were several. The best I think at Boonville, but that'll come later.

 

 

 

 

It was here that I met Kathy. I asked her about her unusual crescent saddle, and she said she absolutely loved it. Saddle first........

 

 

 

And the owner...... Kathy lived in Columbia, MO, a fact I was glad I remembered later on. You will read more about that in tomorrows episode. Here's Kathy, and I enjoyed her company off and on for the rest of the ride.

 

 

 

Moving on down the trail, I soon came to the "high point" on the trail .... okay now, I don't want any of my N.M. and CO. friends getting nosebleeds here.......

 

 

 

But this meant that everything from here on was downhill ..... right? Nope ...... theoretically maybe, but it sure wasn't that way on Tuesday. Soon , before you know it, I was in downtown Green Ridge, MO, so typical of so many of the small communities along the trail, this one bigger than a lot of them.

 

 

And then there was this old guy on his single speed Huffy, kept passing me like I was backin' up.....

 

 

And, before you know it ...... Sedalia, MO! The restored depot at Sedalia is a must see along the trail, gift shop, art work, and today ....... the State Parks people arranged to have local restaurant caterers to set up at the depot for our convenience. The ride doesn't supply lunch, but they did arrange food for sale here at the depot for our convenience. I had a burger (so-so) but dinner was coming up. There was much to see around the depot, they even had a bike shop there. You never know what kind of bike you''ll see running the Katy......

 

 

 An interesting Fat Tire bike for sure. While I was there, one of the staff was nice enough to offer to take my picture with my camera, and get the depot in the background.

 

 

 I did really love the old depot.

 

 

 As well as the artwork in front ....

 

 

 If you look closely, you will see it's a train engine and tender negotiating a winding, hilly track .... signs of what's to come, although I didn't know that yet. Then, there was art work within the art work......... truly a unique piece of metal sculpture. 

 

 

 All around the depot, the theme was old player pianos, so it seemed only fitting that they would have one out on the tracks. They left the section of tracks in front of the depot which I thought was a nice touch as well. Loved This player piano.......

 

 

 

And then it was a quick ride down through Sedalia, here's Main Street.

 

 

A lot of the small towns we went through had Churches with the classic old tall steeples like this one.

 

 

This is the entry to Liberty Park.

 

 

 

 

 This proved to be one of the nicer campsites due mainly to the shade available. I was there ahead of most of the riders, so I got one of the nicer shaded sites. Here is home sweet home.

 

 

Later on, everything you see behind me was FULL of tents. Tent city for sure. Back in the back of the photo is the nice covered area that they unloaded our luggage under, and behind that was the shower truck. So nice to have hot water and clean showers every night and hot water for shaving. That afternoon was kind of quiet for me. A lot of the riders had done this ride several times before and joined into little groups for conversation, that I felt reluctant to break in on. There were, however, three nice ladies from Lawrence, Kansas  who set up right next to me, and we eventually got to chatting and the afternoon went fast. We ended up being good friends at the end of the ride. Then there was dinner. Again, a model of efficiency. Fast lines and great food, as well as plenty of it. The logistics involved in putting on a ride like this staggers my mind. Again, these people just take it in stride and it works so well.

Dinner tonight .....Salad (veggie and Mac) pulled pork (plain or BBQ) large dinner roll, (freshly baked) BIG baked potato, green beans, iced tea or water, and dessert. They called out that anyone wanting seconds could come and get 'em. I barely waddled away from there. Ate dinner with my new neighbors, and we chatted away the dinner time. Then it was the nightly riders meeting, where they introduced all our staff and let us know what was in store for us tomorrow. Tomorrow was going to be the longest day of the ride , 70 or so miles. Afterwards, we went back to camp, to hang out and chat. The Park Rangers were a constant presence, patrolling our campgrounds every night, all night long, and on the trails during the day. I made this cute Ranger stop and pose for me. She was also very informative about her duties and riding the trail. Fun talking to her, she was out on the trail the next day as well.

 

 

 

The rest of the evening, I chatted with my neighbors and new friends from dinner, turning in shortly after dark. I was tired! The next day started early again. Nitie nite all!