Katy Trail Day 1: Clinton to Sedalia

We had a great day riding the trail. We left our hotel this morning and rode our bikes a mile to the car rental place in Warrensburg. From there we drove down to Clinton and dropped the car off.

We left the Enterprise rental place at 10:20am and headed for the trail. Our total ride from Clinton was 42.8 miles, which included a couple extra miles when we doubled back from the Katy Trail Depot and Museum to the campground at the state fairgrounds.

Westernmost Terminus: Clinton, Missouri

Official Trailhead Starting Point

Ready to Ride!

We only saw about a dozen other cyclists on the trail today. We were pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the scenery, everything from Prairie Grass to farmland with a few small towns mixed in between.

Highest Point on the Katy Trail - Elevation: 955' 

We arrived at our campground around 4:30pm, set up our camp and cooked a small dinner. The fairgrounds are absolutely beautiful, and we were super happy to find that there were several geocaches here.

Geocache

Cyclists TIPS: If you are thinking of staying at the campground at the fairgrounds:

1. Bring earplugs. There is some kind of plant nearby that is very loud.
   
   
2. Bring a something to cover your eyes with....there are a lot of lights here. You won't need a flashlight. 
   
   
3. Wait a VERY long time for the shower water to heat up. It never heated up for either of us, but the campground hosts claims it will get very hot. You just have to wait (we ran the water for more than 5 minutes before giving up on it getting hot.
   
   
4. Geocache! 
   
   
5. The fairgrounds were absolutely beautiful, so be sure to look around while you are here. 
   
   
6. You can do a one way rental through Enterprise. Cost was about $35; the Clinton location is not open on the weekend. 

Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia

Livestock

Barnyard Fun

Welcome to Missouri

Today was a lot of sitting, and not in the saddle. We are however, slowly making our way to the Katy Trail.

We boarded the Amtrak at the Summit station, located in the Chicago suburbs. It's one of those train stations where there is not a depot or attendants. All of the passengers were lined up on the platform on the east side of the tracks, so we toted all of our baggage across the tracks. We see the train coming and it is pulling up to the other platform...the engineer stops the train and we all scurried back over the tracks. Thank goodness that we had some help getting our bags onto the train. There is nothing like dragging around panniers, camping gear and bicycles.

The train ride to St Louis was rather uneventful. Of course we had to get off the train, walk over to the station, wait, and then walk right back to where we were to get back on the next train. It all worked out, especially for T, as a nice Amtrak employee picked her and the two bikes up with their little orange cart.

Rolling into St Louis

In the process of boarding the Missouri River Runner Amtrak train, one of the train attendants was helping us figure out where to put our bikes. He was black gentleman named Martin and was probably around 50. From down the way, the white conductor, about the same age, was yelling out suggestions on what we should do... he was a regular buttinsky, and in fact ended up making us drag those darn bicycles around more than we needed too! I ended up walking towards his end of the car, the bike over my shoulder. He looked at me and I just said there wasn't room at the other end. So he yells back at Martin, something to the effect of, "SON, you need to learn how to stack items into that space," which came across as very belittling. I was horrified because it was clearly racist. These two men are the same age and that black man was certainly not his son. I said something to Martin on the train, and he just basically said that the guy was how we was. I told him that in Oregon this was not how we did things, and it was not okay.

The whole episode did not sit well with me. When we got off the train in Warrensburg, the whit conductor helped us get our bags off the train. Before we left, I told him that we observed what had happened on the platform in St Louis and how when he referred his colleague as "SON," it came across as racist, that it was not ok, and that it didn't feel safe. He looked at me, wondering what I was talking about. He made some comment, and it was clear that he had no idea that he actually referred to Martin as "SON." I also told him it was a great welcome to St Louis, Missouri.

So there we were in the tiny little Warrensburg depot at about 8:45pm putting our gear on to our bicycles. There's a young black guy (20ish) on the phone, but he stops his conversation to ask us about our bikes. We asked him if he was waiting for the train. He replied that he's waiting for a taxi and proceeds to refer to someone as a retard. Sigh... I already called out the guy on the train; I let this one go. Not next time.

Night ride from the Warrensburg Amtrak Station to our hotel.

We rode our bikes two miles to the hotel and spent the next hour and a half deciding what we should mail home. In the end, we kept it all and were glad we did. We used everything we brought except first aid and tools (a very good thing!).

Selfie taken with phone in the handlebar mount.

Fermilab: The Neutrinos Passing Through Us

Today we took a tour of Fermilab where we learned about particle acceleration and the worldwide collaboration in the study of matter and energy.

Paula, a retired AP Physics teacher, was our fantastic tour guide. Our group had lots of questions and she did a great job of answering them. Anyone who could guide unruly high school students through AP Physics surely could deal with a bunch of 50+ year old tourists.

One of the things Paula talked about was the "Standard Model," which presents the fundamental particles. I took physics in school, but I had never heard of this. AsPaula said, this is to physics what the periodic table of the elements is to chemistry.

We learned about neutrinos, "a neutral subatomic particle with a mass close to zero and half-integral spin, rarely reacting with normal matter. Three kinds of neutrinos are known, associated with the electron, muon, and tau particle."

Whatever.

But what was REALLY cool was that these little particles are accelerated and then TRAVEL THROUGH THE EARTH and are collected and counted up in Minnesota! And some other places. Wow. Actually, there are neutrinos passing through us all the time from the sun (did I get that right?), which makes that whole, "Beam me up, Scotty!" not sound so outlandish.

The other interesting tidbit is that the Fermilab had the third web site on the world wide web. Let's be clear, we are not talking internet, but rather world wide web, meaning the graphical, user-friendly www that we all know and love. [The internet goes way back to the days of (D)ARPANET.] Fermilab also had a cancer treatment program, where electrons were used to treat cancer. The program director, Dr. Lennox, ironically died of breast cancer.

Fermilab

Overlooking the Beginning

A Peek at the Accelerator (blue)

Arlene J Lennox, Ph.D. and her Cancer Research

Unruly Tourists

Lunch at the Cafe for $4.50: Freshly Prepared Veggies, Quinoa and Cheese Ravioli

After the tour, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped by the cafe for a bite to eat. After lunch, we took a tour of the grounds. Check out the photo of the power lines...those poles were specifically designed to look like pi. Turns out the original Fermilab director, Robert Wilson, was all about art, nature, and the environment; you see his impact throughout...everything from the native prairie grasses to the Bison Bison (meaning pure bred bison) herd. On the right of the photo is a little blue building beside a mound of earth. This is all part of the accelerator.

Pi Powerlines

We ended up at the Lederman Science Center, which had some hands-on exhibits, a small gift store, and a Geocache. While in the store, I noticed a plaque honoring another woman—once again, another person I have never heard of who made great contributions to science. "Helen Edwards, one of the most vital contributors to the success of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory over its five-decade history..."

Views to Volleyball

Today's adventures are many and varied...and started with a trip to the North American Baha'i Temple in Wilmette, IL near the Lake Michigan shore.

View from the bridge. 

Lake Michigan

#11 rocked it. 

T gets groovy @ the Arlington Public Library.

In It For The Long Haul

The scenery has been beautiful, but one of the things you realize about train travel, is that if you have any kind of need other than your basic meals, you really don't have any options. There are no convenience stores near train stops that you can get in and out of in four minutes!

T has been feeling nauseous. Yesterday, we thought maybe it was motion sickness. That wasn't it...she was gifted Dramamine from another passenger, but it didn't really help. After I got really sick last night, we realized that it was probably something we ate on the train.

Here are the things we will always be sure to bring along on an overnight train trip...

1. A liter or two of 7-Up
2. Saltines and pretzels
3. Dramamine
4. Your favorite ultralight down throw (like the awesome ones you can get at Costco right now) and pillow.
5. Something to throw up in just in case there isn't a plastic bag lining the bathroom trash. Maybe something like a gallon sized ZipLoc bag; it's nice to be able to seal a barf bag.

After the trip, T was diagnosed with Celiac disease, which was the cause of her discomfort.

LaCrosse, WI Amtrak Station

Big Sky

This morning we woke up to the Big Sky of Montana. After breakfast, we took a quick jump off of the train in Whitefish to get a few laps in.

If you haven't ridden the Amtrak before, you'll always want to take advantage of the stops—even if they're only for a couple of minutes. the good news is that if you're in a sleeper car, there's always somebody getting on or off. You do have to stay nearby, because if you don't get on the train when they call "All Aboard," you may find that the train has left without you!

We've seen some pretty amazing scenery this morning. The fall foliage just East of East Glacier was particularly beautiful.

For some reason, I have never seen clean train windows. Which is a a shame; the reason we take the train is for the views. This time, it occurred to me that I could clean the windows myself...and WOW what a difference. It is so amazing...definitely tip worthy for future train travellers.

Red Cap Service

We did a lot of research for our Katy Trail trip, and were really having a hard time figuring out how we would get to the start of the trail in an affordable way.

Having folding bikes makes everything a little bit easier because it opens up a couple of options for us. First we can take these bikes on Amtrak as luggage, including our bus segment from Eugene to Portland. Secondly, these will fit in the back of a regular sized car, which we will be renting in Missouri to drive from Warrensburg to Clinton ($35—less than taking the Greyhound!).

If you get a sleeper car when traveling on Amtrak, make sure you talk with your agent about the Red Cap service that's available. It was great to have somebody meet us at our bus andr transfer all of our bags and bicycles to our sleeper car for us.

We had no idea that this was even possible until the lady at the Eugene Amtrak station told us about it. She was so kind and set everything up ahead of time for us; when we arrived in Portland, Craig was there to greet us with his electric cart. He took the bags; we got to take a walk and then relax in the Sleeper Car passenger lounge with a beverage.

On Our Way

Today marks the beginning of our journey, leaving Eugene, Oregon and heading to Chicago on the Amtrak.

Yes, we do have a lot of bags! Our gear consists of two bicycles in the large bags, one giant suitcase full of bicycle gear, two panniers full of bicycle gear, a suitcase for our time in Chicago, and two backpacks with everything that we might need for our two nights aboard Amtrak. Thank goodness for our neighbors and their Toyota RAV, you can fit anything into one of those cars!

It feels a little weird to be going on a trip at the end of September. I've always worked in public education, so vacations during this time of year have always been off-limits. But this year I requested to go to a part-time status, which allows for taking unpaid time off during the school year.

Katy Trail Adventure

We like a good challenge, so when we heard about the Katy Trail, it was immediately added to our list of potential bikepacking adventures. We live in Oregon and I work for a school district, meaning that travel times are limited and it would take some doing to get out there. We also knew that doing the trail between June and August was not an option because we are not accustomed to the humidity.

In our 50s, we decided that we only have so many September/Octobers left in life, so decided to tackle the trail this year. We had so much fun on our Weiser River Trail ride in Idaho this past May, that we decided to go for it, bought our Amtrak tickets (while still on the trail!) and started planning our journey.

We knew that we wanted to keep our costs low and the best way to do that was to stay out of hotels and restaurants. That's not to say that we didn't eat out or that we didn't enjoy a bed along the way...but we did try to focus on being self sufficient and enjoy the people and places along the way. But, avoiding those hotels and restaurants also means gear. Fully loaded, we figure that we were carrying between 15-20 pounds on our bikes, which included spare tubes, tools, camping gear, clothes, food for the week, and various other items. Being ultra lightweight backpackers (but not minimalists), we are careful about what we bring and I'm pleased to say that we used everything we brought with the exception of tools and spare tubes.

We do not have a "need for speed" and we approach our trips as an opportunity to learn about local history, visit museums, enjoy local beverages, and so forth, which all requires that you know the times that places are open and adjust your riding schedule accordingly. We also know that all trips require extra off trail riding, so what is planned as a 35-40 mile day generally becomes a 40-50 mile day and that we need a day to rest, do laundry, and so forth about every three days.

In our initial research, we were somewhat dismayed to find that the information on the Katy Trail web site to be fairly outdated and the reports regarding camping left us a little worried. But having learned from our Weiser River Trail ride that little towns are friendly, generally have parks, and if you figure out who to ask, you will find that there are nice places to camp out along the way.

The following posts outline our trip, including where we stayed and how we were able to ride the trail one-way without the use of a shuttle.

Happy trails!

• Katy Trail Day 1: Clinton to Sedalia
• Katy Trail Day 2: Sedalia to Boonville
• Katy Trail Day 3: Boonville to Hartsburg
• Katy Trail Day 4: Hartsburg to Jefferson City
• Katy Trail Day 5: Jefferson City to Hermann
• Katy Trail Day 6: Hermann to Augusta
• Katy Trail Day 7: Augusta to Machens (and back to St Charles)
• Transportation: To & From the Katy Trail
• Katy Trail Bikepacking Map

Gearing Up: Our Dahon Folding Bicycles

On our upcoming Katy Trail adventure, we will be riding our Dahon D7 folding bicycles — I ride this flashy orange model and T rides the silver Mariner — both have seven gears. For some reason, people seem to think that these are for commuting around town...but they are actually pretty awesome for long distance riding. Although these are rated as "street" bikes, we have ridden them on gravel rails to trails with no problems.

Riding the Weiser River Trail in Idaho last May (2018), I think I spent most of the trip in gears 1-3. It was a fantastic experience, with our total miles around 180 or so. Most of the gravel was pretty thin, though there were areas where there were rocks on the trail and in some spots cattle had crossed the trail, which made for an incredibly bumpy ride (think dried mud with hoof indentations). We rode north first (uphill); on our way back we pretty much had a headwind, so we pedaled just about the entire time.

We were self contained, carrying all of our camping gear, though we did splurge for a night in a bed and breakfast along the way.

Welcome to our Adventures

This fall marks the beginning of a new chapter in life - the transition from full time employee to a .8FTE. Meaning that we have now entered into our new "part time" position of adventurers at large.

Adventure #1: Rails & Trails. Follow us to learn more about how we are spending this new time in our lives.