Birdlady42
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| Made it! |
Today was the last day on the trail. The most popular last stop is St. Charles, mostly since there is an Amtrak station there to take people to Sedalia and back. That’s also where most of the supported ride companies are located. But we wanted to get the full trail experience, so we went clear to the actual end of the trail in Machens. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, so we then had to go back the 3 miles to Black Walnut where my parents could park and pick us up. So we went over 43 miles today and 240 miles for the full trip.
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| “Where the Sidewalk Ends” |
Today started out pretty normal. We actually got out on the trail early and were feeling pretty good. The trail was the busiest we have ever seen it, from Augusta to St. Charles. The closer we got to St. Charles, the grumpier people were. We always say “Hi” “Good morning” or something as we pass people. Until this point almost every single person at least acknowledged us. I guess it’s the effect city life has on people – grumpiness towards strangers. This is also where we ran into people who completely ignored trail and cycling etiquette. Everyone else along the way was super courteous and friendly.
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| Arriving in St. Charles |
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| Old Caboose in St. Charles |
By the time we got to St. Charles, it was noon and the heat and wind were both increasing. We also saw a notice on the board in that depot that the trail was closed due to flooding damage from mile 35 to 34. Hmmm – we were trying to get to mile 26.9. We decided to try it anyway since the notice didn’t have any date on it and could have been old.
The trail was decidedly deserted as we got out of St. Charles. We were riding along the top of earthen levees much of that section. Then the trail dipped down lower and close to the river. We passed a “Trail Closed” sign at mile 35 – we’re rebels like that – then started noticing that there was a lot of mud scraped off to the edge of the trail. The trail was pretty rutted, but passable. We kept carefully plugging on, but that was the worst we saw. As we got closer to mile 34, we saw heavy equipment, but fortunately they weren’t working today. We had rolled the dice and came out ok. There wasn’t a road on our left we could detour onto and the Missouri river was on our right, so if the trail was actually impassable, we would have had to turn back.
As we came up out of the lowest elevation of the entire trail, we were on flat open land with few trees, but a modest headwind. Ugh! It felt like a victory just making it to Black Walnut, but we weren’t done yet! The trail past that depot has been used as a road by the local farmers, which isn’t allowed, but had created deep tire tracks across most of the width of the trail. The washboard effect really made my arms sore for the first time on the whole trip. When we finally got to Machens, a lovely couple from Ferguson with two kiddos just out for the day offered to take our photo together.
So, would we do it again? Maybe we would do that trail again. It is pretty and there are lovely people to meet along the way. However, another trail we had been considering was highly recommended by several people we met who had done it: the C&O Canal/Great Allegheny Passage. So, we’re tentatively planning to try that next Fall.
When I first came up with this idea to do something for my 50th birthday, Brian started researching the trails and then we narrowed in on the Katy pretty quickly. He found us great places to stay and we trained since the early Spring for this ride. It’s been a great time for us to work towards an accomplishment together. So, yes, we’ll tour again. Stay tuned for where!
Thanks also to my parents for being our “SAG” team for the week! They got to do a little nature and history touring, but it was nice knowing that if anything came up they were there. We got lucky in that we never needed them and the weather was perfect!
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| Awesome sandstone bluff right along the trail before St. Charles |
woo hoo!
inspiring work…