I'm biking across the country

I woke to rain this morning. Packing up, I got on the road a little before 11 and climbed back over the hills of Jefferson City to a bike shop. I am in the market for a new saddle (seat) and maybe shoes, but the items I am looking for aren’t usually carried by the small shops I come across. Never hurts to check though.

On my way out of town I ate at the Thai restaurant that I had scouted out last night. It was good. Back over the terrible freeway bridge and onto the Katy trail. The rain had let up by this point and the cloud cover was giving way to sunshine. My destination for today was Boonville, MO where my parents were kind enough to get me a hotel room there for two nights, so I’ll be taking a rest day.

Since it was “only” 50 miles to boonville , I of course got in the mindset that it’d be a short day. No good.

At one point I came across a pack of 4 or 5 dogs walking down the path. I dismounted and carefully passed them but they seemed entirely passive – no threat whatsoever. I also passed by another bike tourist with four overflowing panniers and a big trailer. His whole setup must have weighed 120+ pounds, and his slow pace seemingly showed it.

The miles went by pretty slowly, but as the afternoon got later I was greeted with some pretty spectacular views of bluffs and a beautiful sky. Lots of photos today… of more clouds.

I arrived in Boonville at 6:00 after upping my pace to 16 mph for the last hour and checked into my awesome hotel room. I’ll try to get some photos that do it justice. Anyways, I’ll be back on the road Thursday morning.

Today’s mileage: 53 miles.
Total: 1613 miles.

I woke up early and was out of my campsite by 7, but decided to take a shower before getting on the trail. Thanks, person who reserved that campsite, for the free place to stay and shower.

I got on the Katy trail at 7:45 and stopped pretty soon for big breakfast to make up for my lack of real meals the day before. The first few miles were cold but it warmed up into a nice day before too long. These miles went by pretty easily but I found myself pretty tired/lethargic after 25 or 30 miles so I pulled over at a bench overlooking the Missouri river and lay down.

I stayed there for probably an hour, getting a little bit of sleep. Had a nice chat with a local cyclist who had previously lived in the DC area, and got back on the bike. The wind had picked up, but it was a mix of crosswinds and headwinds. Furthermore, the Katy trail is about half covered by trees and half open and when surrounded by trees you are sheltered from the wind, so the combination of these things added up to the wind not being too bad, certainly not like Illinois was.

Town after town went by that supposedly had places to eat, but none of them did. They were all closed permanently or closed at the time or were seemingly nonexistent. So I continued on a diet of Gatorade, energy bars, and once I found a convenience store, cookies and candy bars. After eating so much packaged food, I’ve gained a newfound respect for a properly produced meal, it goes down much more easily.

The miles went by slowly this afternoon, with breaks every 10 or 15 miles. I would stop and watch the river, it has a very strong current and when boats try and go upstream on it they are reduced to a crawl. The wind blows strongly across it’s surface and breaks upon the trees on the banks. Sitting on the river bank, it was simultaneously refreshing and violent – a strange mix.

I decided to stay in Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. To continue my trip’s bridge woes, the pedestrian/bike part of the bridge was closed. Google maps walking directions told me to go 94 miles around to a different bridge. Lovely. So I once again crossed a shoulder-less 60mph freeway bridge. I tried to go to a Thai restaurant but it was only open for lunch. I’ll have to go tomorrow. The city was hilly, which was especially rough at the end of such a tiring day, but I found a motel and slept.

Today’s mileage: 82 miles.
Total: 1560 miles.

Waking up at 7 this morning, I checked the weather. It was 48 degrees outside. Back to sleep.

I got packed up and on the road at 11. The motel owner had talked my ear off when I checked in but I managed to keep our conversation short as I left. It was a 15 mile ride through suburbs and then East St. Louis before crossing the Mississippi river into Missouri.

I made my way to the Gateway arch park and took a picture of my bike in front of the arch. There were tons of tourists but they all were right below the arch – I wanted a picture of the arch in the background so I went to the edge of the park. I was planning on asking someone to take a photo of me with my bike but it was entirely deserted, and I thought it was a great spot for a photo. Weird.

I decided to eat lunch at a brewery right next to the park, and it turned out there was some sort of festival going on. During lunch, the people sitting next to me were cyclists and they were impressed by how quickly I made it this far. The waitress then caught on and was pretty interested – apparently she rides casually. On my way out of the festival, some guys working a booth stopped me to ask questions and take a photo. St. Louis treated me pretty well.

It was a 20 mile ride through the city and the surrounding suburbs to connect to the Katy trail which will take me most of the way across Missouri. Once on the trail, I headed west and ran into a nice local cyclist who gave me recommendations for places to stay and eat. Unfortunately, labor day royally screwed up my plans. The restaurant was overflowing due to some event and the campground was completely full. I did notice one camp spot that was reserved but empty. I ate a dinner of trail mix at the park’s picnic area while waiting for darkness to set in, then pitched my tent in the reserved but empty spot. Hopefully I can get an early start tomorrow.

Today’s mileage: 63 miles.
Total: 1478 miles

Another late start. I checked out of my motel at 11 and after a meal at subway, got on the road in earnest at noon. The headwinds persisted and slowed my progress.

Today was just a day of state highways. I was planning on taking route 15 west all the way but eventually veered north in search of closer food. Coming through a town, I found no restaurants open in the city, but a couple by the interstate a couple miles outside town. That’s often how it is, I’ll ride through a town with a boarded up main street only to arrive at a heavily populated series of sprawling strip malls outside the city. Kind of sad.

I tried to eat at a restaurant but after waiting for a few minutes and not getting any service, l relented and went to the place next door – subway for the second time of the trip and the second time of the day. I don’t mind subway, it’s just that I need to eat a lot of calories and so anything that advertises low calories is generally just a waste of money for me. I often find myself reading the nutrition information on packages just to choose the *highest* caloric food.

Outside the subway, a couple had pulled into the parking lot with two cars packed full of stuff and bikes hitched to the back. They were coming from Colorado and mentioned taking their bikes to Europe. It doesn’t make much sense for them to be driving their stuff from Colorado if they are moving to Europe so I must have been missing part of the story. Anyways, they wanted a photo of me so I smiled for the camera before heading off. It was now almost 5 and I had only covered 40 miles.

I hit my zone for today after this second meal. The wind had mostly subsided, fewer cars were on the road, and the sun was sinking in the sky. Besides the terrible headwinds of earlier, it was another day of perfect weather. The forecast shows three days of thunderstorms next week so I’ll have to cherish the good riding while it’s here.

I arrived in the city of Belleville, IL -about 10 miles from St. Louis – as dark was setting in and got a seedy motel room. All the campsites are taken this weekend due to the holiday, and it took me 5 calls to find a place to stay. Not cool. Being in a largish city, I had to eat ethnic food so I found a Thai restaurant. The ride home from my meal was absolutely frigid, looks like I might need my cold weather clothes before too long.

I still need to work on taking more interesting photos.

Today’s mileage: 71 miles
Total: 1415 miles

Daniel, my host for the night, had a morning flight so I had some incentive to get on the road early. We said our goodbyes at 7:30 and after a long breakfast spent planning my day I headed west.

It was pretty chilly this morning, so I donned my rain jacket for a second time. However, biking quickly warmed me up and the jacket was off before I got out of Evansville. The headwinds of yesterday persisted and slowed my progress.

Maybe 15 miles out of town, I ran into an older couple touring on a tandem bicycle. They were headed to a town on the edge of Indiana for a family reunion but I didn’t catch where they had started. Their pace was much slower than mine so I wished them luck and took off after talking to them for a couple minutes.

My last miles in Indiana were relaxing despite the constant onslaught of wind. Perhaps it was the weather which was warm enough to be comfortable but cool enough to keep me from sweating, or maybe it was what I was listening to – Ulrich Schnauss makes some pretty calming music. Whatever it was, getting out of the mindset of looking at every house for dogs that will chase me, looking at every fallen branch and shredded tire for a snake to jump out at me certainly improves the riding experience.

I got to thinking about what I want to do when I finish my trip. Not day-to-day things like a job or school but rather what sort of goals I should have. Before I left on my trip, I was following the blog of Mason McCord who was biking across the country. After getting fed up with his life, he made a list of life goals like running a marathon, climbing everest, visiting the poles, etc. All of them sounded like awesome things to do, but realistically you have to pick and choose what you will do in a lifetime. So that’s what I thought about today. I don’t have any answers, just ideas that I will wait to develop further.

These past few days I’ve been getting more emails from YouTube saying people have been commenting on and subscribing to my videos. Turns out I was (once again) featured on a major Warcraft blog even though it’s been 2 years since I released a video. Reading over the comments, it’s fun to see people try and analyze your work. Some of them get the gist of the message I’m trying to get across, and some are just affected by the ambiance. I think my methods of storytelling are pretty well thought out but perhaps they are too subtle if no one is getting what I’m saying. I think I need to make another video, just need to decide on what it will be.

Anyways, I continued on into Illinois. Battling headwinds, I rode and rode, stopping on average once an hour to rest. I made it to the town of Mt. Vernon, Illinois (not to be confused with Mt. Vernon Ohio where I stayed a week or two ago) and got a cheap motel room.

Today’s mileage: 95 miles
Total: 1344 miles