Birdlady42
Today we figured would be a short day, so we took our time leaving McKittrick. Joey, the owner of the B&B, let us leave our bikes in her barn so we could ride in the car with my parents back over the bridge to Hermann where we ate last night. It’s a town settled by the Germans in the early 1800’s. We visited the old Schoolhouse museum. It had two floors of great displays, from textiles to toys to riverboat displays.
After we had wandered a bit in Hermann, we headed back to our bikes. Joey’s Birdhouse B&B backs right onto the Katy Trail. I highly recommend it for people riding it. There are a lot more places to stay in Hermann, but you have about a 2 mile ride to get over the river there and the terrain quickly gets quite hilly.
So, we didn’t really get started until close to 1pm. That was no issue, since we had about 3 hours of riding and couldn’t check into our B&B in Augusta until 4 anyway. The problem was that by that time in the day the heat is at its peak, the trail was more out in the open instead of in forested areas, and it gave the wind time to kick it up a notch. One of the reasons we chose to ride the trail from west to east was that the typical prevailing winds would be at our back…except when they get more unpredictable…like in Autumn! Today was our shortest day, but one of our toughest because of that.
For the first time, I actually had to give myself a little pep talk when we were about 10 miles from the end. There was nothing in particular wrong, but my energy just wasn’t where it usually is. By the time we got to Augusta, though, I had enough left in me to actually ride up a very steep hill into town. It was steeper than any hill I’ve ridden before and ran over a block long. I almost couldn’t control my bike at the top because I was going so slow, but I made it! I had already resigned myself to having to walk my bike up it when we read about it. After all, it wasn’t actually part of the trail, so there would be no shame in that. My stubbornness kicked in when I saw it, though, and I did it anyway.
Sightings today included many more lunatic (suicidal?) red fox squirrels – the gray ones are quite sensible – a snake Brian tried really hard to not run over, but it blended into the trail too well, and I had a beaver staring at me from the edge of the trail as I went by.
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| The Mercantile next to Joey’s Birdhouse B&B, for breakfast |
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| We go to the schoolhouse museum in time to help wind the clock! |
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| Old sign at the Mercantile |
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| At many intersections, you can still see the old abandoned rails |
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| The Augusta trailhead |
When we canoed the boundary waters the goal each day was to be off the water by 2pm to avoid the wind which tends to pick up in the afternoon. Glad you're still doing well, you've got this!