110 miles of the Katy Trail

The Katy Trail is the longest contiguous rails to trails conversion in the U.S. It runs from Kansas City to St. Charles, Mo (about 25 miles west of St Louis). Last week Owen and I rode the section from Jefferson City to St Charles. We took Amtrak from St Louis to our starting point and only got there 2 hours behind schedule due to a freight train stopped in the middle of the tracks about 30 miles east of our destination.

As the train pulled away I realized I left an important piece of luggage on the train, the one with our lunch and all the snacks for the trip. A very nice boy scout leader and his son insisted on driving us to our starting point, as to avoid the dangerous ride across the bridge over the Missouri River that has no bike lane . That was all very well and good but upon being dropped off at the Katy Trailhead it quickly became apparent that all the amenities of Jefferson City, for example places to purchase food, were back on the other side of the river. It was almost 2 p.m., we had not eaten lunch and the nearest food was 12 miles away. Owen was not pleased. But he did not complain, he just rode fast.

I had estimated we needed to do about 35 miles per day to finish by Tuesday and we were starting a bit behind the eight ball, having gotten such a late start. We did managed 28 miles the first day and ended up riding in the dark to find our camping spot. The Katy passes through extremely rural areas and the only places to eat are a few smokey taverns that specialize mostly in fry-o-lator food and burgers. I quickly realized the food mistake was a big one. The only admonition I got from Owen was, "I don't really like the idea of having to always ride to get our food". I saved a piece of the frozen pizza we ate for dinner that first night for Owen's breakfast because we would not arrive at any possible eateries the next day for at least 10 miles. Since it was late in the season, many of the few businesses that cater to the passing cyclists were not open, making pickings even slimmer.

This was also the day of the Great Stickbug Migration. Apparently there had just been a hatching of stickbugs and the mothers were carrying their babies on their backs across the trail, hundreds of them on a few sections of the trail. At first Owen came to a screeching halt and manually helped each bug across, so as not to get squished by other non-bug loving cyclists. After the third episode he suggested we get off our bikes, pick them up and carry them around the area. So we did.

Day two greeted us with perfect fall weather and postcard views of the Missouri River. We rode the 10 miles to the tiny town of Rhineland and were pleasantly surprised to find Trailside Bar and Grille serving up a yummy breakfast (horrible coffee), and a selection of about 10 freshly bakes pies. Owen had pancakes followed by fresh coconut cream pie. I had eggs and half his pie. A few of the taverns are open for breakfast since they do a brisk early business feeding the hunters before they set off into the killing fields. An interesting side note about the town of Rhineland: After the 1993 flood that inundated the lowlands with 6 feet of water, the entire town was moved, house by house, up the hill to higher ground.

This was the day of the flat tire, having somewhere rolled through a bunch of goat-head thorns (also known as Puncturevine) http://www.plantsci.missouri.edu/deltaweeds/images/sandbur%20control.pdf I had 4 flats, two on my trailer and one in each tire.

We also explored a "ghost farm." Evidently the people just left or died (many, many years ago) and their heirs did not want to deal. The house was filled with furniture and cabinets full of meticulously maintained ledgers of the owners' auto business, circa 1950s.

We ended the day, after 38 miles, in the dark just east of the small enclave of Peers. That night it got below freezing, so naturally I was freezing in my summer sleeping bag. Owen woke saying he had the best sleep ever. The child is like a furnace.

On our third and last day it was quite a bit colder and in the morning we had to get creative to keep Owen's feet from feeling like Popsicles. We alternately rode and walked for the first few miles and then I hit upon the idea of putting my warmy-shwarmy, extra mittens over the toes of his boots and that did the trick. It was a cloudless day with a coldish wind out the west that was both our friend and foe. It helped blow us to our final destination but it kept us in our coats for the day.

We rode 7 miles before breakfasting at the smokey Dutzow Deli. We sat in the "non-smoking section", a table length from the "smoking section" with nothing in between but smoke filled air. Missouri really needs to get up to speed with the rest of America in this respect. Afterwards we rode non-stop for 15 miles to Dave and Jackie's Bar in Defiance, MO. I am including a link that explains how the town got its name and it is pretty funny. http://www.defiancemissouri.com/history.htm On our last stretch of 22 miles Owen was on a mission to be finished and did not want to stop for anything except a few drinks of water. As we approached St. Charles the houses turned from modest, quaint farm houses to urban uglies of massive proportion. In St. Charles Tony met us and we all ate dinner together at a fantastic Italian diner.

The scenery along the Katy Trail is lovely, quintessential americana. It does not get much more bucolic that this. Yet it made me more than just a little sad and contemplative as I realized that we were traveling through a vanishing landscape. This is an area that was platted and settled in the days of Daniel Boone...beginning of the 1800s for those of you that skipped that day in school. The region is steeped in history and a tradition that barely still exists, family farming. I imagine that 50 years hence the visual experience for cyclists will be quite different than mine. All those many barns that I saw in varying states of disrepair, neglect and abandonment will have fallen down and much of the former farmland I passed by will be engulfed in the suburban sprawl-type developments that are the showcase of "progress". People probably won't even realize that they should feel sad and outraged.