Day 6- Boonville, MO to Marshall, MO (40/262 miles)

Managed to get in 40 miles this afternoon after the rain finally stopped (for a while, at least). It was really nice to turn off the muddy Katy Trail and onto the paved roads of the Santa Fe Trail.

The Santa Fe Trail is a commercial trail dating back to 1821, that was used to facilitate trade between the United States and Mexico. It ran from near Boonville to a city now known as Santa Fe, New Mexico. (As you probably know, what is now Santa Fe was then part of Mexico.  That continued to be the case until President Poke, er, I mean Polk, provoked a war in 1846 designed to steal much of what is now the Southwest from Mexico.)

I am now fairly close to Kansas City in western Missouri and the terrain is gradully starting to change from deep forest to rolling prairie.  This transformation was not lost on the Corps of the Expedition Discovery, who found the prairie to be beautiful.

I enjoyed an excellent meal today at The J. HustonTavern in Arrow Rock, which was constructed in 1834.  The meal was served family style, and I think I alone consumed more food than did some of the families sitting nearby.

The couple sitting at the table next to mine introduced themselves. Coincidentally, the gentleman, Dan Sturdevant, was a past president of a national organization known as the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.  He and his wife,  Marilee, are tremendously knowledgeable authorities on the expedition and the lives of Lewis and Clark. We had a fabulous conversation.  

During the meal, Dan had a phone conversation with a gentleman from New York who is the developer of a video game known as Meriwether.  He demonstrated the game on his laptop.  I'm not sure how the game is played, but what he showed me depicted a conversation between Lewis and President Jefferson.

The AccuWeather forecast, which has proven very accurate so far, is indicating that the rain should stop by 9 AM tomorrow morning.  But it looks like I am going to be heading into 17 mph headwinds gusting as high as 25 mph. I better get some sleep!

Day 5 - Boonville, MO (Washout!)

About 5 inches of cold, relentless rain fell last night, today and tonight on the town of Boonville and much of southern Missouri.  There  was no going anywhere by bicycle. In fact, there was flash flooding around the state so travel of any kind was affected.

I've been thinking a lot about bicycles lately. Did you know that 2017 marks the bicentennial of the invention of the bicycle? German Baron Karl von Drais is credited with inventing the first bicycle in 1817. Who knew? I discovered it somewhat by accident. We cyclists need to celebrate! Come to think of it, I guess I already am...

Day 4 - Tebbetts, MO to Boonville, MO 64/222 miles)

The rain stopped about an hour into my ride today.  The trail was wet, but much better than it has been.  The forecast, however,is calling for extremely heavy rain starting tonight and going throughout the weekend.  

It was imperative that I make it to Boonville today because, assuming the forecast is correct, the trail will be impassable when the rain finally stops.. In Boonville the Louis and Clark Trail departs from the Katy Trail and begins to follow the Santa Fe Trail, which is actually a series of paved roads.

Today's ride is generally considered the most beautiful part of the entire Katy Trail. It passes through several quaint towns, the most picturesque of which is Rocheport. I wish I could've taken more time to enjoy the ride; but for the above stated reasons I pushed really hard and made it to Boonville in time to check into a cheap motel, where I waited for the storms to begin.

Lewis and Clark pretty much had their pick of the litter in selecting men for the expedition.  (Little did they know that they would be joined by a woman who played a vital role in their expedition.) One selection criterion they used was capability, "of bearing bodily fatigue to a considerable degree."  I am not yet in great shape for touring, but at least I met that criterion today. 

Another selection criterion that I do not meet was a requirement that men on the crew be unmarried.  I wonder why that was important...

Tebbetts Bunkhouse and Bluffs

  

Day 3 - Hermann, MO to Tebbetts, MO (33/158 miles)

On May 23, 1804, the ever inquisitive Lewis decided to scale a 300 foot bluff along the river to see what he could see.  In his journal Clark noted that while climbing Lewis slipped and somehow managed to use his knife to break his fall after about 20 feet.

The sandstone bluffs overlooking the Missouri River in the eastern/central part of Missouri are magnificently beautiful, but clearly hazardous. Signs along the Katy Trail warn cyclists to beware of falling rocks.  For this reason I wear my helmet even though there is no vehicle traffic to contend with on the trail.

I left Hermann about 11:30 AM this morning in order to give the trail and my Achilles time to recover.  My plan was to ride about 45 miles this afternoon to Jefferson city, the capital of Missouri.  As so often happens on these bicycle tours, my plans changed.

After riding about 33 miles in pleasantly dry weather. I came to the town of Tebbetts.  Like so many other towns on the Katy Trail, Tebbetts has seen better days.  As I stopped to fill my water bottles at the Katy Trail rest stop in Tebbetts, I noticed The Turner Katy Trail shelter a few hundred feet off the trail. Easily distracted, I decided to check it out.

The sign on the door said it was an overnight lodging place for cyclists and that the key was hanging on a hook on the nearby utility pole.  Although I was not ready to stop for the day, I felt drawn to this place.  After all, as a touring cyclist I really am nothing more than a homeless man with a tent, a sleeping bag and a bicycle. This generally suits me fine except that the weather forecast is calling for rain tonight and tomorrow and I really don't like camping in the rain.

I rode a few hundred yards further down the trail before deciding to turn around and go back.I found the key exactly where the sign said it would be and proceeded to unlock the building. Inside was a cyclist's paradise unlike any I had ever seen.  On the main floor there were about a dozen bunkbeds, a simple kitchen, shower room, bathroom, and workshop.  Upstairs there were more bunkbeds and a balcony.  It was kind of spooky being in there alone, but I felt inclined to stay.

Not having much else to do, I decided to take a walk around what's left of Tebbetts.  When I returned I was delighted to see that a second cyclist about my age had stopped in to join me in the bunkhouse for the night. 

My roommate was from Anchorage and had lived a life of adventure in the Alaskan wilderness. I have done a fair amount of bicycle touring over the past few years, but nothing compared to this guy. He was riding up and down the Katy Trail in preparation for two long bicycle tours he will be doing outside the U.S. this summer and fall.  My new friend proved to be a likeminded guy who shared with me many adventure stories and words of wisdom about life and cycling.

When we got up the next morning it was raining again. We waited until about 11 o'clock and finally paid the small lodging fee and went our separate ways into the rain.  He was heading east to Hermann and I, of course, was heading west.

While I waited in vain for the rain to stop, I looked through the guestbook in the bunkhouse.  Since it is early in the year, there were very few entries, but one caught my eye.  A guy and his daughter had gone to the St. Louis Cardinals opening day baseball game in St. Louis and were riding the length of the Katy trail to catch the Kansas City Royals opening day game a week later.  Now why didn't I think of that!?!

One other thing happened on May 23, 1804, that I found very interesting.  The expedition made a stop at what was known as the Boone settlement and went ashore to purchase some produce from the 30 to 40 families that constituted the Boone settlement. (Actually, they probably didn't purchase anything. Lewis had obtained what amounts to a letter of credit from the United States issued to him by Thomas Jefferson that allowed him to procure anything he needed for the expedition on the full faith and credit of the United States government.)

That Boone settlement consisted of a small group of people who had followed famous U.S. frontiersman and soldier Colonel Daniel Boone from Kentucky to Missouri.  Boone left Kentucky in 1799 at age 65, to accept a land-grant from the Spanish government, which then controlled the Louisiana territory.

Many of the settlers accompanied Lewis and Clark and their crew to the banks of the river to wish them well on their journey. Conspicuous by his unexplained absence from that party of well-wishers was Daniel Boone himself. No one knows exactly why Boone did not greet Lewis and Clark. Some speculate he may have been away at the time.

My guess is that Boone was not a fan of the Louisiana purchase or anyone having anything to do with it.  The Louisiana purchase  was ceremoniously closed in St. Louis in March 1804.  This could not have been good news for Daniel Boone, who had spent the preceding five years building a new life on land granted to him by the Spanish government. In fact, Boone subsequently spent several years successfully litigating his ownership interests in that land with the US government.

My planned destination tomorrow is Boonsville..

Day 2-St. Charles, MO to Hermann, MO (65/125 miles)

I broke Camp today and was on the trail by 8 AM. As far as I could tell, my landlord was still asleep when I left. Lewis and Clark generally cooked at night and left at 6 AM. As the weather warms up, I will try to follow their example.

The next 150 miles of my journey will be on the Katy Trail, which is a spectacular rails-to-trails project that was spearheaded by Edward (Ted) Jones and his wife Pat (yes, that family) in the late 1980s. The trail is composed of finely crushed limestone that can absorb a lot of water; but not nearly as much as it received today!  The rain started about an hour after I left this morning and continued all day long. By noon the trail was pure mud.  

I am carrying about 75 pounds of gear (and about 15 pounds of extra weight on my body).  The one and three-quarter inch tires I have on this heavy steel bike (the same Surly Long Haul Trucker I took down the Mississippi river trail) were leaving deep tracks in the mud.  By the time I arrived in Hermann, it was dark and I was a mess.  My bike and gear were completely caked in mud and I could feel the sand in my chain grinding against the sand in my sprockets.  

I rode the Katy Trail in September 2015, and it is normally full of cyclists.  Today I did not see one other cyclist!  

In the afternoon I decided to put my bike cleats on in the hope of riding a little faster.  (My pedals are flat on one side and have clips on the other side.) What a mistake!  By the time I arrived in Hermann my left Achilles was swollen and bruised - tendinitis caused by the strain of repeatedly pulling the pedal up as I hauled my heavy load through the mud.  

Hermann is a lovely little German tourist town on the south side of the Missouri River that is in the heart of Missouri's wine country.  I stayed at the Harbor Haus, which is a small inn that I stayed at when I rode the Katy trail in 2015.  I have fond memories of having breakfast there with a couple of  salty old riverboat pilots who regaled me with stories about life on the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, including time spent with the late John Hartford, a multi-talented steamboat pilot and singer-songwriter who penned the Glen Campbell classic "Gentle On My Mind".

On this visit to Hermann I spent most of my time sleeping and cleaning my bike and gear. I had breakfast the following morning with a cheerful group of eastbound cyclists from Dallas who told me that the rain had not been very bad to the west of Hermann.  Thanks.

I should not complain. My boys Lewis and Clark had it a lot tougher than this.  

At this point in their journey they were traveling upstream in three boats with a crew of about 45 men.  The largest of the boats was a 55 foot long keelboat built in Pittsburgh to Lewis's specifications.  It came complete with a cabin, oars for 20 rowers and a mast upon which a sail could be hoisted.

The problem was that  the keelboat was better suited for the deep Ohio and Mississippi rivers than it was for the shallow and fast flowing Missouri River.  There was a navigable channel in the Missouri River, but the fast current in the channel carried dangerously large logs and other debris.  To avoid those hazards, the corps of the expedition discovery had to make their way slowly up the shallow sides of the river where the current was not so swift.  

This presented its own challenges.  The keelboat would sometimes become lodged upon submerged logs and mud.  The crew would often have to free the marooned keelboat using poles and even pull it from the riverbanks using ropes.

It was at about this point in the river that the mast of the keel boat broke after colliding with the branch of a tree protruding from the backwaters of the river.  I'll try to remember that story the next time I have a flat tire!

The crew members who were not in the keelboat were traveling in two "pirogues", which were canoe – shaped, flat – bottomed boats that were each about 40 feet long and capable of carrying about about 5 tons of weight.  Surprisingly, the pirogues tended to lag behind the keelboat, which suggests to me that they were beset with their own hardships as they made their way upstream in the fast flowing river.

I passed a handmade canoe that someone is making along the banks of the river from a falling tree. He appears to be using construction methods similar to those that were used by the crew of the expedition to make the pirogues.  Much further along in their journey, the crew learned from the Nez Perce Indians a superior construction method for building boats.

 

My weather tomorrow is supposed to be better - more rain in the morning but then clearing in the afternoon.  I'm going to take the morning off, sleep in, take some anti-inflammatories and not wear my cleats!

Day 1 -Granite City, IL to St. Charles, MO (60/60 miles)

I started my long and arduous bicycle journey on the Lewis and Clark Trail on this gorgeous spring day from the replica of Camp Dubois in the Illinois Lewis and Clark Memorial State Park. Following the route laid out in the adventure cycling maps, I traveled north along the Mississippi River and took ferry boats across both the Illinois River and the Mississippi River, ending the day in St. Charles, Missouri.  In between the two rivers is Calhoun County, Illinois (better change that name), which is a gorgeous strip of land with a spectacular wildlife refuge that is very reminiscent of Door County, Wisconsin and Leelanau County, Michigan.

I met a nice guy out for a day ride along the levee above the Mississippi River who rode with me for about 10 miles.  He liked the bicycling aspect of my journey, but expressed concern about camping in the wild (i.e., not in a campground).  Originally from New York, he was fearful that someone could attack at night and bludgeon him with a baseball bat!?!?!  Hmmmm.  Personally, I am more worried about that 17-year-old girl coming up behind me who is texting while driving!  Apparently a road worker who passed me in Missouri shared my concern because he pulled over and gave me his reflective vest!

Saint Charles today is a prosperous bedroom community of St. Louis, but in 1804 it was a largely French  community of about 100 homes that both Lewis and Clark described as impoverished (my word, not theirs). Lewis described the people of St. Charles as "excessively lazy" when they are at home. (Perhaps the same could be said of me, but not when I'm on a bicycle tour.)

On May 16, 1804, the good people of St. Charles hosted a send off ball for Captain Clark and the crew of the expedition discovery. Lewis missed all of the fun.  He had gone to St. Louis to take care of a few things before joining Clark and the crew at St. Charles. By all accounts it was a festive affair at which great quantities of alcohol were consumed.   Perhaps the condition in which Lewis found his crew and the locals when he arrived in St. Charles in the aftermath of the celebration contributed to his views!  

The 1804 send off ball is commemorated today by a city plaque in a park near the banks of the Missouri River.  As I was riding through the park, a rock band was playing and the present day inhabitants of St. Charles were having a pretty good time!  Unfortunately, it was not a send off party in my honor. I had to negotiate a deal with a heavily inebriated gentleman who lived on the outskirts of town to camp in his yard.  As I climbed into my tent I began to wonder  whether I might get attacked in the night with a baseball bat!

Oh, in case you're wondering about that dog in the statue of Lewis and Clark in the park in St. Charles, that's Lewis's dog Seaman, who made the journey with them.  Clark brought along his slave, York.

"… When at home excessively lazy" Meriwether Lewis, May 1804,in reference to the people of St. Charles

  

"Fixing for a Start" William Clark, May 14, 1804

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent the winter of 1803-1804 at Camp Dubois, on the east bank of the Mississippi River near Hartford, Illinois preparing for Expedition Discovery, bound for the Pacific Ocean by way of what they hoped would be a combination of navigable rivers.  They had planned to break camp in April, but delayed their departure until May 14, in order to procure about 120 gallons of whiskey and other vital supplies from nearby St. Louis.

I plan to follow them by bicycle 213 years later.  Along the way I will compare and contrast my observations and hardships with theirs.  Like them, I plan to keep a journal.  Mine will be in the form of this blog.

My trip will be broken up into multiple segments due to a number of commitments I have over the course of the spring and summer. You are welcome to follow me if you wish.

I need to procure some supplies myself (not whiskey), and am hoping to depart from Hartford within the next week.    I'll be in touch when I'm ready to go!