43.9 miles, 2669 total miles so far.
We woke to a dripping hot and humid Missouri morning. Pretty much got on our way without delay, fueled by snacks.
This segment of the Katy trail gets a lot of use with walkers, runners, and cyclists. Sadly, a section of about two miles entering St Charles has thick, larger gravel and other material dumped on it, so-as to be almost unridable. This is the only such section we encountered in our 200 plus miles on the trail. We bypassed much of the mess by jumping over to the bottom road, which has an excellent, wide shoulder through this section.
Once we arrived in St Charles we found really good coffee and bakery items from a very nice person at Bike Stop Bakery.
As a storm front arrived overhead, Colin quickly purchased some jelly on our way out of town towards the Grafton Ferry. The picnic for which this jelly, peanut butter, and fresh bread was envisioned would never happen, as we raced through pouring rain (which felt GREAT) to the ferry about 10 miles into the countryside.
On the Illinois side of the ferry we were greeted by my brothers and sisters and in-laws John, Nancy, John and Marty. We moved immediately to a nearby place for a nice lunch together.
As we left, a storm had redeveloped on top of us, this time with lightning.
Against better judgment we took off towards Alton on the Great River Road as the storm persisted, with an assertive wind to our backs.
As I reach the turn off of the main road, and the skies cleared momentarily, I realized that Steve and Colin were nowhere to be seen, and mobile phone service (and local power) in the area was down.
A man in a pickup truck parked nearby noticed me at the side of the highway and had me climb in to the dry and more lightning-safe truck cab while I pondered the status of my friends.
History repeats itself and, of course, Steve had a flat tire in the storm. With Colin’s help this was fixed as quickly as possible, and then they managed to navigate to points unknown via a temperamental bike computer touch screen through intense cloudbursts.
Phone service came back just as Steve and Colin found me at the intersection in the helpful stranger’s truck. I thanked the man and the three took off again in the downpour.
After one very steep hill, which felt more like biking up a river at times, we arrived to an open garage with John waiting with soft, dry towels. This made the whole experience more like an exclusive adventure tour.
The day wound down peacefully, over home made soup and sandwiches. We were so lucky to have awarm dry place to rest so we start out Saturday clean and rested, and with a few new accessories installed on my bike.
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