Always Do What Your Garmin Tells You or Is There an Advantage to It Raining When You are on a Dirt Road or Will the Rain Ever Stop or The Street Sign Doesn't Lie

 

I thought this was funny that my Garmin told me to Ride to Moo. I guess someone must appreciate when I moo at the cows as we ride past them.

We started out on the KATY trail and found the conditions much better today. We were averaging about 12 MPH and the bikes were behaving. Here's a shot of Thom at one of the culverts on the trail.

At about mile 40 we had lunch in Boonville, MO where Claudia's grandfather and grandmother lived. We then crossed the Missouri River. Here is a shot of the Missouri and for those of you have ever seen any of my picture collections, here is a shot of my finger, bike handlebar and Thom's foot on the bridge over the Missouri River.

Since the trail was in such good condition we decided to take it all the way to Columbia and then head north to Mexico. Big Mistake. All of a sudden there was a sign that said Trail Closed, A bridge had washed out. We were forced onto US 40 which wasn't terrible. We then tried to figure a route out to Mexico. For those of you who don't know, both Thom and I are pretty good with maps. We have been riding for 26 days we should have this route planning on the fly, down pretty well. We don't.

About 4 miles after we turned off of US 40 we were supposed to turn onto a dirt road. Another route alteration was made on the fly. We ended up on a gravel road. At least it was raining hard enough that it wasn't dusty. 

The nice thing about sharing locations on Google Maps is that I knew Claudia was in Columbia and I asked her to stand by in case we needed her and not to proceed to Mexico, After walking our bikes for about a quarter of a mile because the road was just too gravelly we came upon some pavement. A local stopped to give us some advice on which roads were paved. He laughed when we said we were going to Mexico. Some how it came up in the conversation how old we are. He was only 59 and was astonished that we were trying this ride. We agreed upon on a route and he warned us about a big hill. We were pleasantly surprised that there wasn't a big hill. 

The rain started getting heavier so we asked Claudia to meet us. Where you may ask? But on Dripping Spring Road of course. (Actually we met on Red Rock Road which is an extension of Dripping Spring Road.) Here is the street sign and here I am when Claudia picked us up. It is now almost 6 hours later and my clothes still aren't dry. As Claudia said the name of the street was quite appropriate for us.

PROGRESS

Yes we are still moving forward. We have crossed the 2,000 total miles milestone (Yuk Yuk) but not the Illinois border.

TOMORROW

We hope to be in Illinois.