On my way out of town I stopped at a nice little breakfast place where I met up once again with that bike touring crew. The small coffee shop was overflowing with all the bikers about to leave on their multi-day tour. My ride began heading in the opposite direction.
There was a steady stream of rollers and once again nobody out on the trail. I came to my first two portages. Last nights heavy rain and thunderstorms knock down two trees across the path. The first I was able to get through. But the second one, I had to pull everything off my bike to get over. Finally moving at a steady clip I found myself enjoying the changing of the scenery again. At one point crossing a road I hit a bump and my GoPro tumbled off the bike and I ran over it. For some reason the mount exploded at the base dislodging its connection. The GoPro survived but now I’ll have to figure out how to mount it to my handlebars another time
I stopped in the largest town along my day today for a much needed lunch in cold water. Continuing up the trail I stopped to get some water and soak myself in cold water off the trail.
As I sat at this little shelter Wayne, is dog Jake, and Eric rolled in. We sat and talked for over a half hour. Wayne a disabled vet, was just coming from Oregon and telling me all the ways not to go to the West Coast. He and Eric clearly had traveled some of the same roads but not necessarily together. I listened and heard about their stories and just enjoyed the time sitting in the shade together. Wayne had spent some time in Detroit as a truck driver so we had things to talk about. He had some great stories about him and his friend a US Marshall. They both were interested in the journey and Eric took down the website so hopefully they will follow. Thanks boys for a great conversation.
Finishing up the remainder of the day, I passed over the highest point of the Katy trail which is really nothing compared to what I’m going to see in the next month or so.
Coming in to the camp there were options for both tenting and cabins. I opted for the air condition cabin given the heat in the humidity of today, tonight, and tomorrow. I met brothers Michael, Chris, and Hal. We went to dinner at this wonderful little restaurant with nothing but home cooking. Three of us had a great turkey dinner and we all had some type of cobbler and dessert which made the meal perfect. We all headed back to the campsite anticipating possibly sitting and having a fire. But as the food, began we all decided it was time to go to sleep. Maybe I’ll see them in the morning. I’ve got a long day tomorrow I want to try to avoid as much heat as possible going to try to get a very early start. I’ve said that before so we’ll see.
