Our last day on the KATY trail! I awoke this morning in my rain fly-less tent to a jogger running past. Mike and I got up decently fast, ate some breakfast, and got going on the trail. Our plan mirrored yesterdays, get miles in before lunch time then hide out in a library for a few hours.
While it wasn't bad, we noticed that the western section of the KATY does gradually gain elevation as it leaves the river, I had been lulled into a false sense of thinking that the entire trail was basically flat.
The morning was filled with lots of shade for the most part and good scenery. By the time early afternoon rolled around, we had made it to Sedalia and were hungry. We looked around and settled on a Mexican place that reminded me a lot of Los Tap in Binghamton... mmm, beans and rice! Afterwards we migrated over to the library, which Mike was amazed was a Carnegie library - that boy, so cultured.
I stayed in the library until they closed at 5pm, at which time I met up again with Mike and we forged ahead towards the end of the KATY trail. But little did we know who we'd run into...
We rolled into the Windsor trail head and saw a man sitting next to a bike and 4 bike trailers, drinking a beer. This man was unique. I can't remember his name. He told us how he had all his worldly possessions in these trailers - gas generator, flood lights, coolers, 50 pounds of tools, dry goods, a 10-man tent, everything. He had modified these trailers so he could pull them all, like train cars behind his bicycle, Havoc. He claimed to be one of the three best bicycle survivalists, he would get to where he was going, circle up the bike and trailers around him, then go to sleep.
Sadly, he really wanted some cigarettes but had no cash, so he wanted to do some good ol' bartering with us for money. He offered us selected meats from his coolers, all "fresh" and "on ice", along with potatoes, rice, and seasoning. I figured eating summer sausage bartered off a homeless man would make a great story of how I got deathly ill and had to cut my trip short, so I gave him a $5 donation and Mike and I were on our way. Godspeed 4-trailer-pulling-guy!
We only got a little past Calhoun before it got dark and we decided to just camp 8 miles from the end of the trail and finish it tomorrow. We found a nice grassy section on the trail next to 3 benches and set up our tents and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Start: Boonville, MO
End: Calhoun, MO
Distance: 68.93 miles
No comments:
Post a Comment