Day 33, Katy Trail
Agusta MO to Bluffton MO, 45 miles
I don’t usually start my daily journal entry in the morning, but I’m up early and I have a few minutes before I need to be on the road. I’m three miles east of Augusta and if I leave now its likely there won’t be a cafe open for breakfast. (My editor has informed me there is no need to put a bang (‘) after the word its. So from now on I’ll try to remember not to do that…)
The campground last night offered me two options for sleeping, a nice patch of dirt with some blades of grass here-and-there, or a covered picnic table. While it might not occur to everyone that a covered picnic table is a great place to throw down the sleeping bag, I think it’s ideal. I don’t have to go to the trouble of setting up a tent or packing it up the next morning, and it gives me more time to read and write. It had started raining by the time I needed to make a choice so that sealed the deal. I inflated the mattress, threw down the sleeping bag and I was asleep within a few minutes. I suppose you might call that a form of “stealth camping.”
Today is going to be a bit longer day, but I’m getting a much earlier start, so there won’t be any need to push. It should be a very relaxing day. The sky looks like it could produce some rain at some point during the day. That will remain a mystery, until it occurs… Ah! just as I finished writing that sentence, the mystery was solved! I’ll just take an extra minute to dig out my rain jacket…
When the birds start chirping you know it has stopped raining…
I don’t normally finish my daily entry the next today, but yesterday is an exception. Shortly after I started down the road it started raining. So hard in fact I had to not only put on my rain coat but also get off the bike and hunker down under some trees to try and avoid the worst of the downpour. After almost an hour of relentless rain, I heard some chirping, sure enough the birds were informing me that the rain was letting up. The only trouble was the sky to the west was still dark and that was my direction of travel. I started out anyway and got one mile down the trail only to be engulfed again. Fortunately there was a trailhead there and I was able to get under some cover. By then I was so wet and cold I had to put on my light weight down jacket under my rain coat. I waited another hour and was finally able to get under way again.
I made progress enough, but a wet Katy Trail is not as easy to cycle as a dry one (although there is no dust). Along the way I stopped at the “Katy Caboose” in Marthasville. Jon the chef and proprietor made a nice sandwich for me. We got to chatting and Jon mentioned that he is running for president! “Running” is a play-on-words. He’s planning to shut down the Caboose in January and go down to Florida and try and set the record for the shortest time on foot traversing the Pensacola Trail. After that, he’s going to continue on to San Diego. His goal is to cover 50 miles a day on foot. He has documented his “running” campaign on his website:
His motto, “I Just Felt Like Running” describes his campaign and his upcoming cross-country journey. I admire him. I’m doing 50 miles a day, but I’m not on foot! If you’re on Facebook you can look for me there. He took my photo to post. Jon takes photos of all the cyclists that stop at his cafe that are going across the country. The page is called “Going All The Way.”
I’ll be following Jon on his cross-country epic starting early next year.