Clinton to Sedalia

J: We decided that we would generally not rise too early. This was our vacation after all. We drove from KC to Clinton, had breakfast, readied our gear and were on the trail by 10AM. The Clinton depot had some very nice facilities for bikers. Bathrooms and water were available and a healthy stash of maps was available. There was no charge for using the trail (not like back in WI). Ironically, the town of Clinton was named after Dewitt Clinton a former governor of NY State. In fact he was instrumental in the funding and subsequent completion of the Erie Canal. There you have it – the perfect link to last year’s trip and the beginning of this new trip. We took a few pictures and headed off on our epic journey.

We hadn’t gone very far when I got my first flat. My streak of trips with flats has not been good over the last couple of years, so it made sense that I would get a flat on this trip. Let’s hope that it is my last. As we were patching the tube a number of vultures circled over us on the trail. I asked Marie if she remembered CPR. Perhaps I had overextended myself pulling the heavy trailer and I didn’t want to breathe my last breath while the vulture were picking at my flesh :) ! The vultures moved off when they realized there wasn’t much left on me but skin and bones! Seriously, we were back on our way and enjoying what was left of the morning along the trail. It was a beautiful sunny day with a nice tail-breeze to help us keep moving.

We met a few interesting folks during lunch at Subway. One gentleman was a rancher in Missouri and we began chatting about his life as a rancher. He has 300 head and 20 horses. You can tell that he loved life as a rancher. He grew up on the ranch and has been there ever since. He brother in-law was also there with him. He was also a biker and offered us some tips on the trail ahead. He also owned a Motobecane as his first “adult” bike.

Later in the day we met Craig. He is the Superintendent of Schools in Clinton and a club rider. He rides the trail for the training benefits. That reminds me – I forgot to tell Marie that 35 miles on the trail is nearly equivalent to 40 to 45 miles on the road, especially when the crushed stone is soft (which it was in many spots). She wasn’t happy.

Craig was about to pass us by when we struck up a conversation. Not to be totally shown up by his pace I tried to carry on a conversation while picking up my pace a bit. We had a very nice talk for about 20 minutes when I realized that Marie had dropped behind us a bit. I decided that I would stop and let Craig go on ahead, but at that precise moment we came upon three women from Boulder, Colorado who had started out from Clinton this morning and were also headed to St. Louis on the Katy Trail. Craig also stopped to chat with them and all six of us began trading stories about how we found ourselves together.

Oh, I nearly neglected to mention that we had just finished climbing and scratching our way up to the highest point on the Katy Trail and were out of breath. Climbing to 955’ was grueling! :-) (see the pic). We made it into Sedalia at about 5PM, settled into the hotel, showered, did some laundry, blogged and went to dinner. A full day by the time it was all over.


I was very proud of Marie and how she did today. Before we began while eating breakfast I asked her how she felt about the trip, figuring that she would express some reservations, but instead she was extremely confident in her ability to finish the trip. I asked her the same question after a day of riding. She stated that she was a bit tired, but still as confident. Way to go M!!