September 20, 2019
Day 13
Got away from Washington, MO this morning at about 8:30 am. The supported tour folks I had seen when I was leaving Hermann were staying in the same motel I was in Washington. They had ridden all the way to Defiance yesterday and then got shuttled back to Washington for the night. While I was loading up, several of them came outside to get a closer look at my rig and asked all the usual questions. Where did you start, where are you headed today and then questions about the bike. A lot of them expressed astonishment I had ridden on the highways from Montezuma to Clinton just to get on the trail. This morning, they got shuttled back to Defiance, where they rode on in to St. Charles, so, I did not see any of them on the trail. I did see a couple of them in St. Charles. The name of their tour group was "Road Scholars".
Anyway, Washington is big enough to have a bit of a rush hour. As most of the traffic was inbound towards the city, I did not have as much traffic to deal with since I was "outbound" on the way back to Dutzow. Once I got back on the trail at the Dutzow trailhead, I started downstream. Since I could not check in to my hotel here in St. Charles until 3:00 pm, I did not get in any hurry. Just before I got to Augusta, part of the trail for about 1/4 mile was rough and had a lot of loose gravel all over. It was a bit dicey, but easing along, I got thru without having to get off and walk. According to some of the locals I spoke with, that partictular section of the trail got washed completely away and was just re-opened within the last two weeks.
Down the trail about three or four miles, there was another detour because of bridge replacement construction. This detour was thru Klondike park, and part of the pathway was paved with asphalt on the steep uphill (or downhill, just depending on which direction you are going). I just put the chain in the small chainring on the crank, selected level 2 on the e-assist and chugged up the hill. There was a bit of up, down and winding around, before getting off onto another gravel path that eventually led back to the Katy Trail.
Back on the trail, it was the usual "lookout for rough/soft spots and eroded areas" especially near gravel drives that cross the trail. Two of the locals were telling me about a bike shop in a rest area near Defiance. We passed several school kids out for a walk on the trail with a couple of their teachers as we neared the Defiance rest area. Seems like an entire 4th grade class from some school was having a field trip out to the trail. About the time I decided to leave the rest area, I could not even get back on the trail, because a bunch of the kids with their rental bikes had jammed up on the footbridge and would not get out of the way. When I finally got back on the trail proper, there were lots of kids out on more rental bicycles jamming up the trail. At one point 8 or 10 of them had stopped and completly blocked the trail and it took a while for them to clear a path, even with some prompting from one of the teachers. Some of those kids were struggling to keep balance on the bikes and were oblivious to everything around them including the three riders pedaling towards them. Reminded me of Sunday afternoons in Trinity Park in Fort Worth.........a good place to stay away from.
Once I escaped from the herd of kids, which actually took a good two or three miles, it was mostly clear sailing. Saw a lot more frogs, toads, squirrels and birds along the path this morning and then mostly birds as the day wore on. It is very easy to tell the frogs from the toads. Frogs cross the trail in about 2 to 4 jumps, just depending on the size of the frog. The bigger ones take the fewest jumps. Toads, on the other hand, take 20 to 40 hops to get across, just depending on the size. A couple of days ago, I thought I saw a pileated woodpecker fly across in front of me, but did not get a good enough look to be sure. Today, one flew across and landed in a tree and I got a really good look and it was a pileated for sure. Wow! That is a big woodpecker!
As I got closer to St. Charles, I saw a couple of contruction barges tied up at a dock on the far side of the river. I also saw a power boat of some kind heading downriver along in there somewhere as sell. A bit later, I saw a couple of bike riders on the highway next to the trail going the opposite direction, and at that point, I wondered why. Then I got into more loose stuff and found out why. In close to town, the trail loops in behind some big arena and then winds around a bit more. Eventually it gets back to the original right-of-way and just about a half mile from Frontier Park, some of the old rails are still where they were from back in the day when trains ran on them. First time I had seen any of the original rails except for a short section in front of the MKT depot in Sedalia.
As to the dust, it was the worst today than any other day. Before I left Washington, I put the rain covers on my underseat panniers to help keep them clean. It worked, but it still took me a good 20 minutes to get everything cleaned off once I got checked in to the motel so the housekeeping staff don't come looking for me in the morning for tracking in a bunch of dust. Whatever stuff the guys at Revolution Cycles put on my chain worked, cuz it is not gunked up at all. It looks a little dusty, but that's it.
After getting the bike and gear cleaned up and my gear moved in to my room, I went back down to a restaurant near the trail for something to eat. Locked my bike to a bike stand and went inside. It sure got a lot of close looks from passers-by. It is not every day the folks around here see an 8 foot long recumbent bike with e-assist. The wood battery box gets the most comments.
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Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 659 miles (1,061 km)
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