“Recovery Ride” From Rocheport to Jefferson City

A lot of the trail looked like this today.

To say that today was easy would be a lie, but it wasn’t awful, either. I’m definitely glad it was one of our shorter days (about 36 miles). From Rocheport to around Easley was the prettiest scenery so far: Missouri River to the right and massive limestone bluffs to the left. This runs along part of the Lewis and Clark Trail, with markers for their campsites on specific dates. One of them was at a cave, where there are pictographs high up on the bluff walls from the Manitou tribe. They are very faded now, but impressive when you try to imagine how they got there. If you think about it, it makes sense that it would eventually become a rail line and now the bike trail. It was already mapped out and follows a river, making it an obvious choice for wagons going west. Because it was already used as a route, that the rail lines would use it follows logically. It was very flat – which was welcome today!

Glad we’re past the halfway point, both in days and miles. We had our own little celebration (high fives) when we hit 100 miles total. Whew!

We found a brew pub for dinner in the old jail downtown, Prison Brew. There was good food, a fun atmosphere, excellent service and good beer. As an added bonus, the bocce ball league was meeting on the patio tonight. Who knew it was so popular in the middle of Missouri? Favorite team name spotted was “Orange is the New Bocce.”

We’re staying in a hotel tonight in Jefferson City, then on to the last half (I like how that sounds!) of the ride.

Large Snapping Turtle in the center of the photo

If you look carefully just to the left of the center of the photo, there is a red character that looks a bit like a Nike swoosh with a red dot. That’s the clearest remnant of the Manitou pictographs.