Deja Vu All Over Again

Tonight we’re going to break with tradition. I have always written the post and then added the pictures at the end. Tonight, the pictures will be mixed in.

We’ll start the way we have for the past few days - with some bike trip bingo. There are two items tonight. One which was from the drive out and should have been included on Day 1. The other is a little trivia question. First things first. Kudos to you if you had camp out in a Denny’s parking lot - in Evanston, Wyoming. It just seems stupid to pay for a hotel room or a camping spot when there’s a bed in the van and a Denny’s at the truck stop. Besides, I only slept for about 3 hours because I was on I-80 in Wyoming. For anyone that’s had the misfortune of being there, they know. I-80 is routinely closed due to high crosswinds all across the 400-mile width of the state. The road closure signs were on for all campers under 20,000 pounds. Of course they were and of course our high-profile van (which gets blown all over the road in moderate breezes) weighs well under the 20k limit. I figured they weren’t going to have police stopping people to put their vans on a scale so I pressed on. I covered the 100 miles to Evanston and since I’d been driving for about 13 hours already, I looked for a place to stop. Enter the Denny’s. There is plenty of traffic at the Denny’s all hours of the night, so it was not a restful night. After 3 hours, I got up and tried to beat the winds across the state. I managed to get almost all the way across before I started getting bounced around a bit, but I was past Cheyenne and almost to Nebraska where no such closures were in place. Note: It’s pretty f*cking windy in Nebraska too. They just don’t care enough to warn you.

Here’s the trivia. Against my better judgement, I found myself on the Katy Trail again this afternoon. After a very pleasant morning on some backroads over some rolling hills south of the Missouri River. I got to the town of Boonville. Knowing what was ahead, I stopped for an early lunch at a nice little cafe right alongside the trail and obviously put there to attract cyclists.

I made a last ditch effort to find an alternate route to my final destination. Finding none, I resigned myself to what lay ahead and set out. First I had to cross the Missouri as the trail ran along the north shore of the river. I did not meet with immediate success.

I needed to be over there

Once I got over the bridge and onto the trail, the boredom began. I put my headphones in as I was not concerned about traffic or other life of any sort on the trail. That brings me to the trivia. On my playlist, I have about 2100 songs. They cover a wide variety of different genres and artists and decades. They are in alphabetical order, although I start with numerical song titles first. (e.g. 1, 2 Many by Luke Combs is the first song). What is the first city mentioned in a song title on my playlist? Members of my immediate family are ineligible to participate. Meanwhile

Hey, I had to sit through it so you do too. But then all of a sudden this happened

About 10 miles in, a little town called Rocheport popped up on the trail with lots of cyclists and a little cafe. I had just eaten lunch so I wasn’t particularly hungry, but figured I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity so I got a drink and some chips and killed some time, dreading my return to the trail.

A bit further up, there was this spot but it was more of a boat ramp and park. The funny thing about those two places is there were quite a few cyclists at each one. Yet on the trail, they disappeared, either gone altogether or blending in with the crushed gravel so well I didn’t notice them.

Hint: There are actually two songs that have the city in the title

The Katy Trail is flat, straight, and crushed gravel. Yes, I covered that on day 1, but I wasn’t on it nearly as long as today and my right hand was getting numb, along with other body parts, from the vibrations from the gravel. There are virtually no other people.

This is amazing because 1) the deer didn’t move for 30 seconds 2) I didn’t notice where I’d stopped, and 3) there are other people. This people scared away the deer and then pointed out the stick on the ground. But it wasn’t a stick.

Still here

Still here

Look out!!

It was while trying to get this shot that I nearly caused 2 accidents. As I mentioned, I had headphones in. As I also mentioned there are no people. Except, as it turns out, at that EXACT moment when I had a hand off the handlebars, trying to take an action photo of (another) milepost, when someone tried to pass me on the left. The first such person in 40 miles. As I swerved to avoid him, I see (but don’t hear) his riding partner trying to go by me on the right. She was able to break just in time and politely point out that I had a stick jammed in my derailleur before she quickly moved on.

Hint: The city was a destination on a previous bike trip.

That’s the last one I saw, although I know I passed one more, enduring 46 mostly very dull miles on the trail. It’s definitely an easy ride and well-maintained. It’s just not what moves the needle for me.

Finally I emerged from the trail, and what do you know, I had to cross the Missouri again, marking the 5th crossing this week (so far). This one was a peach.

I had to ride around and up that thing to get to the bridge. There was a bike lane over the bridge, similarly fenced and separated from the vehicle traffic. Across the bridge is when the real fun began. I had roughly 500 feet of climbing in the last 2 miles. Those were miles 89 and 90’for the day. I have always thought that Salem, Oregon was the ugliest capital city I’ve seen. I believe Jefferson City, Missouri has officially wrested the crown away. But there was this

If you can’t read it. It says home of the Eddie Gaedel Society. If you’re a baseball fan, you know. If not, look it up. And to think I saw this

If you’re a Dr. Seuss fan, you know.

Hint: I did not arrive at the destination on my bike.

Answer: Amarillo By Morning and Amarillo Sky