Off the Katy trail

Today we rode from Hermann to outside St Louis. We spent most of the day on the Katy trail, before crossing the Missouri River and finishing with some urban riding.

I was worried it would be hard to get back on the bike today after spending all day yesterday eating, drinking, and lounging around. But that wasn’t the case at all. It felt great to be back on the bike. The weather has warmed up a lot too. All around, it was a great day.

A couple of cyclists passed us today and asked where we are headed. I said “Virginia” and they said “holy shit!” I really wanted to shout after them “ask where we started!” At this point, Virginia seems like a much more reasonable destination than how California as an origin sounds.

Highlights

• great weather, felt good to be riding again
• being able to vote in the November elections this year was a logistical challenge. Mike and I ended up having our absentee ballots sent to my parents’ house and once they arrived earlier this week, we figured my mom could mail it to the hotel we planned to be at tonight, hopefully with enough time for it to get here before we left. And it did! We got the ballots right when we checked in, and will drop them off at a mail box in the morning. I’m so lucky my mom is always willing to help me out and is also someone who simply gets things done. Doesn’t matter what the problem is, she’ll solve it.

Lowlights

• it has been dusty the whole time we’ve been on the Katy trail, but today was exceptionally bad. Basically everything looked gray by the time we were done. Our bikes. Our wheels. Our clothes. We spent a good amount of time at our hotel tonight cleaning everything off.

Julie’s food

• Breakfast: oatmeal, hash browns, and coffee
• First Snack: no cow bar
• Lunch: Clif bar, peanut butter sandwich
• Dinner: Field Roast corn dogs, Buffalo cauliflower wings, Buffalo chick’n burger with avocado

Stats

• Total distance: 63.02 miles
• Elevation gain: 493 feet
• Weather: dry, high of 73 degrees Fahrenheit