I woke up at 6am and touched the broken pavement outside my tent, which was still retaining the heat from the day before and was warm to the touch. I woke up feeling sore from the day before but was motivated because I would be spending the night with a family from warm showers. As I packed my tent up, I remember being slightly paranoid about camping where I was the night before, but in the morning daylight I realized just how hidden I was from the rest of the world.
I had to deviate from the ACA route to get to my warm showers host that night, who lived about 20 miles closer to St. Louis than the ACA route went. I had no problem with this, as I could just pretty much follow Route 79 into O'Fallon and this would allow me to intersect the KATY trail closer to it's eastern starting point tomorrow. This portion of 79 looked to be a lot tamer, even tamer than where the ACA route was trying to direct me, and after yesterday, I didn't want to deal with those kind of hills again in this 100+ degree heat.
After a pretty mellow ride on 79, the traffic picked up as I got closer and closer to St. Louis. Most of the way there was a wide shoulder so I just stuck to that as cars whizzed by me going 60+ mph. I eventually turned off and took some side streets to my host's house.
My host, Elaine, and her family were interesting people, very friendly, but I don't think any of them cycled. Her son was into BMX biking at one time but got his bike stolen and then went down to Arkansas to do roofing work. She and her husband volunteered at the local Renaissance Fair during the summer and used couch surfing a lot when traveling, but come to think of it I never did figure out why they were on warm showers. None the less, I did get a shower, some dinner, and a pull out couch in the basement, where it got so cold due to the A/C that I had to bust out my long sleeve fleece for the first time of this trip!
I was given the option to join her daughters to go see the St. Louis fireworks, but they were leaving at 6pm and wouldn't be back until midnight and I just wanted to sleep, so I decided to skip the hot outside temps and fireworks display for some nice A/C and passing out at 9pm. I'm a crazy guy!
Start: Louisiana, MO
End: O'Fallon, MO
Distance: 53.96 miles
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