Ride on Katy

Last year the long riding day was the first. This year we have two short days before gearing up for the long day. We are off to Boonville on a nice ride with a bit of, for the Katy, elevation changes. The trail takes us through the cut outs on the bluffs.

Can't you just imagine the train locomotive chugging through the rock cuts?? I can.
We also get our first ride over a trestle bridge. There are many of these on this trail. Different versions of old RR style and new bridges that Missouri State Parks have erected to keep the Katy open for us.

Good riding today, not too much special. Here are some trail pictures of a nice ride in the woods!!

Even some of the local crowd came out to cool off and watch us ride by. Ok, they might have been more about cooling off than us.

After an extended downslope (can not really call it a downhill) we roll into Boonville. They have an refurbished depot. We set up camp at the old military academy grounds and then go find some lunch. We ended up at the same Greek diner that we ate at last year and it was good with cold beers. They gave us Boonville "bucks" to spend in town for dinner and we tried the food at the casino. Seemed to me a strange place for a big glitzy casino and they had a lot of rules about eating and drinking there....pretty forgettable place.

Up and rolling on Wednesday for our long ride of the trip, 70+ miles today.
Kyle has a lot of enthusiasm for the day ahead crossing the Big Missouri River to start the day out of Boonville.

 We also had the start of what would become a pretty good head wind. Now everybody told me last year, as we rode through headwinds every day that west to east always has a tail wind out of the south west. Hmmmmm...cyclist luck I guess. It was also the hottest day of the ride....well into the 90's. OK by me because I just don't get that much hot weather during the year and it really felt pretty good. Just keep drinking!!
The trail opened up again before we get to the really scenic areas around Rocheport and the tunnel.

Of course the bluff and tree tunnel before the tunnel, and the tunnel are the highlight of today's ride. It is fun to ride through this.

I was always on the lookout for turtles and snakes to catch pictures of. I saw about three turtles and this one snake slowly moving across the trail. When I showed this picture to the Ranger later he identified it as a Copperhead. Not poisonous but if bitten it would really hurt for a few days. I was a total tourist telling Kyle to get closer so I could get him in the picture!!

We pedaled out the miles, stopped for lunch and pedal out more miles against the wind in the hot sun until we came to our finish town of Mokane. Before riding up to the school where our camping spot was, we popped into the local (and only!!) joint for a few beers and met the owners and heard a bit of their story and how they came to own a saloon in Mokane, MO. Fun was had!!

The camp spot at the Mokane school was the only downside of the trip. No shade and a complete sweat-fest to set up. After the shower truck you had to search out shade spots and wait for the sun to go down to cool off. Just some down time with a book this evening, no activities or towns to go into.
We'll leave it there for the next post and the final days.
Thanks for following along!!

Jim