I had a fairly good night's sleep last night. Woke up at 5:30 a.m., had a couple of peanut butter on toast with hot tea. Told Gary and Alice goodbye and then began riding.
Since I rode farther than expected yesterday, I modified my route for today. Last night I sent a request through the Warm Showers app to Richard in St. Charles to see if he was available to host me tonight. He responded that I was welcome to stay at his house. How about that? Another night sleeping in an air conditioned room.
At one of the Katy Trail trailheads today I met a father from the Kansas City (KC) area whose son had kayaked on the Missouri River from KC to St. Charles, and is now on his bike on the trail "sprinting" back to KC. When he gets to Pleasant Hill, he is going to get off his bike and run about the last 2 miles to his home. The dad is meeting him at various times to provide any needed supplies. That's impressive!!
Ran across Gary today at the McKittrick trailhead. I was talking to a couple sitting at the trailhead and noticed his RV sitting across the street. Went over to say hello. He was working from the RV and waiting on Alice to pass through.
Pic below of Max and Helen from New Zealand. They have biked about 1700 miles on various rails to trails around the Eastern U.S. Max has done bike touring before but this is Helen's first trip. They usually bike about 40 miles a day. A friend of Max, whom he met while hiking the Appalachian Trail, lives in Atlanta so they visited him and biked the Silver Comet and Chief Ladega Trail in Georgia and Alabama. As we were saying goodbye, Max commented, "Lovely to meet you, " in what I guess is a New Zealand accent. It sounded very sophisticated. They both had lovely accents :)
Pic below of a former railroad trestle and the Missouri River along trail.
Ate lunch at KT Caboose in Marthasville. Pic below of John, the owner of the restaurant. He started it 4 seasons ago. He also allows cyclists to camp beside his restaurant for a small fee. We talked a bit, and he is quite an adventurous person. His restaurant is only open during the riding season of the trail. When the State Park restrooms at the trailheads are winterized and closed, he closes the restaurant and goes on various adventures. (Once again, pardon the finger in the pic. It was starting to rain so it was done quickly.)
While I was eating at the restaurant, I saw Alice bike by. I ran across her several minutes later at the trailhead. She had met Gary there and said they decided to camp in their RV at Klondike Park tonight. This is where I was also going to camp if the Warm Showers request had been denied. I was not looking forward to camping there because Megan (cyclist I met yesterday) told me she camped there and the mosquitoes and raccoons made it miserable.
After Marthasville, I rode through 3 downpours before I made it to St. Charles. The last downpour occurred right before I got to Richard's house so I showed up soaked. The trail gets sloppy when it's wet, and the duck and peanut butter took the brunt of the nastiness (pics below).
Richard (pic below) let me use his garden hose to spray off most of the grit from my bike.
Richard's daughter, Ella, cooked rice and beans for me and Richard for dinner. Richard had told her that I suggested having rice and beans due to its simplicity to cook. She found it hard to believe that I would want to eat just plain rice and beans.
Total miles today: 89.1
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