Day Twenty

Today was great! We rode 84 miles from Highland, IL to Augusta, MO.

This morning Jason and I were sitting at our complimentary breakfast when we saw two apparent bike tourers leave they hotel. When they returned to fill their water bottles, we asked them where they were headed. Apparently they started in Los Angeles and were headed for DC. They asked us if we were planning on taking the Katy Trail through Missouri, and when we said no, they told us we should really look into it. Missouri is they home of the Ozarks, and while the hills aren't huge, there are lots of short steep climbs. The Katy Trail is part of the Rails to Trails program, which converts old railroad beds to bike and running trails. That means it's flat. Super flat. From where we got on in St. Charles, MO it run 230 miles west to Clinton, MO, about 20-30 miles from the Kansas state border. Needless to say, we room their advice and aimed for the Katy Trail.

We crossed the Mississippi River today too! It's actually flooding right now, so it's super high. They casinos along the riverfront were all flooded out. We made our way over to the Arch in St. Louis and hung out for a bit, basically just long enough to get some pictures. They we headed out.

It was terribly hot, and it took us awhile to find a reasonably priced lunch. We eventually found a pub that was a bit pricy, but it worked. We had a terrible waitress, and we were at the restaurant about an extra 45 mins just waiting for our check. Oh well. As we were about to leave, this guy came up to us and asked if we were the ones with the Treks. We told him about our trip and he was pretty excited. He told us that life as a vagabond was the life to live. Apparently he had just quit his job of 11 years, bought a sailboat, and was getting ready to sail around the world. I don't knowif I could licethis way forever, but he was a pretty interesting guy.

We eventually made it to the Katy Trail. It's awesome. It's not technically paved, but it's crushed limestone and good enough to ride on. We made it to Augusta, and decided we didn't want to ride anymore to the campground we had in mind. We were pretty hungry, thirsty, and tired.

Luckily there was a middle school softball gameright off the trail. We stopped and got dinner at the concession stand, and watched they game. After waiting for the game to finish and everyone to clear out (maybe 50 people) we set up our tents in the outfield. We're hoping we don't get kicked out, that'd be tragic. We should be fine though. We charged our phones a bit, and are crashing, getting ready for our first full day on the Katy Trail.

Tomorrow: 100 miles (give or take) down the trail.