On Lake Ouachita, and Naps

By the middle of May, I was pretty much worn out.  For the past couple of weeks, I've been kind of ragged.  It was a tough end to the semester, and we've been shorthanded at work, and I've overcommitted myself on bike projects, and I just needed a break.  Bryan and I decided that, after Mandy left for Tulsa on Friday evening, we'd just disappear for a couple of days.  We chose Lake Ouachita for our getaway, since we thought it would be the quietest of the nearby lakes on a busy holiday weekend, and we put in at Buckville since it's a faraway boat launch.


We didn't get the quiet lake we'd hoped for, but we did manage to find our own private island on the edge of it.

 

Petit Jean Campout

This is our niece, Emma.  What a sweet face! Who wouldn't agree to a post-Christmas campout with these eyes?

Bryan's brother Kevin, his wife Julie, and their little girl had plans to camp at Petit Jean State Park over the holiday break, so we joined them.  We had short dayhikes, lazy afternoon naps in camp, and good Dutch oven food.  It was a nice break from rougher weekend trips.

Lake Catherine

Sometimes the best places are the ones close by.  We wanted a quick, low-mileage weekend camp-out and hike, so we drove to Lake Catherine, near Hot Springs.  Why haven't we been there before?  Probably because it's only thirty minutes away.

It was a pleasant campground with some walk-in sites, so that we didn't have to cope with neighbors close by.  We enjoyed walking around the camping area early the next morning and and exploring the short dayhiking trails later in the day.

Funny that such a pleasant state park's practically in our backyard, but we'd never been there before.  There's no doubt we'll be back soon, though, for another visit.

Katy Trip Day 6 (Boonville - Sedalia)

This is a multi-part trip report. If you haven't already, you should start with Part 1. Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

Click here to see todays route map.

Those lights that were supposed to go off last night at eleven do go off…this morning at six. It wasn’t a great night of sleep, but we took what we could get. We packed up and rode to Casey’s General Store to answer questions from other customers while sitting on the curb eating our breakfasts - pastries, pickles, jerky, breakfast pizza. We bought food for the whole day in case we didn’t see another store, and we hit the trail.



The Katy after Boonville is different - we’re moving away from the river, now, so there are long, low hills and lots of shade. The weather’s more pleasant today, too, in the low nineties, with a breeze and low humidity. We have plenty to eat, and we stop every five miles or so for a short break. We carry ice water in the dromedary from the Pilot Grove trailhead but don’t really need it.



I like the information signs along the Katy.  They're truly helpful, with historical information about the area, explanations of place names, and mileages to nearby stuff.  I like the way each little 'station' has the name of the town on a big black and white sign on each end, just like the old train stations did.  There's a place on each sign for local businesses to post their hours and other information that might be helpful to cyclists passing through.



We knew to expect lots of interesting old bridges along our route, and we really liked the stone train tunnel near Rocheport.  We weren't expecting all these enormous wrinkle-tin culverts out in rural areas of the trail, though.

We pull into Sedalia around four and ride through town to the Katy Depot for tshirts and the little tac pin I always buy for my wall at work. The woman at the counter is full of information: The 40% off shirts are from the anniversary celebration last year, there’s a tornado watch in effect, her freezer at home has broken and all her meat's thawed, the bathroom’s down the hallway, we should eat supper at Kahde’s BBQ. She makes a phone call to find out where we should go if the tornado sirens blow while we're at camp. We’ve found lots of really helpful, sweet people on this trip.

We ride to the state fairgrounds and decide where to camp, then through the empty fairground property, past the swine building and the halls and hot dog stands (Mexican food: burritos, tamales, pizza, ravioli, funnel cakes) to find Kahde’s just across the street.

At Kahde’s, we ate supper inside a real MKT dining car, on the old seats and everything. It was really neat, and we had a Boulevard beer and fried cauliflower. Mandy ordered a baked potato and mashed potatoes, and both are excellent.

We ride together to the Laundromat nearby, and leave me there to wash our clothes.   Bryan and Mandy ge back to the fairgrounds to find that we’d been in entirely the wrong place, so they work together to move to a new and improved, legal camping spot. It’s been a great last day of riding - the weather’s been better than we’ve had all trip, we’ve had good food to eat, and we’re having a great time together again.

Katy Trip Day 5 (Huntsdale - Boonville)

This is a multi-part trip report. If you haven't already, you should start with Part 1. Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

Click here to see todays route map.

Why is everything always closed? When we planned this trip, we'd had imagined little towns every few miles with ice cream shops and burger places.  The guidebook seems to indicate that's the case.  Apparently the guidebook author was bad at his job, and has never actually tried to eat food while riding the Katy.




We have a snack before hitting the road this morning, riding along the river bluffs I remember from trips as a teenager to this part of the trail.  We're expecting to have a good breakfast in Rocheport, at the much-loved Trailside Cafe.  We've been hearing about it all week.  It's closed on Wednesdays. Annie’s doesn’t open until noon. We find the general store, which opens at eleven. I stick my head inside the cool, dark store at 10:15 and talk to the girl who’s baking. She grudgingly lets us in and we sit in the still-dark wooden store and order beef sandwiches and quiche, and when the owner shows up he makes our breakfast.

Just outside Rocheport is the neat, dark, quiet railroad tunnel. While we were stopped taking photographs, a couple of young guys with good bikes and Ortlieb panniers rolled to a stop. They aren’t just riding the whole Katy - they’re on a trip from Seattle to Washington DC. We gave them directions to the general store and took their photo together at the tunnel and they were off again on another hundred mile day.

We'd looked forward to having lunch in New Franklin, but nobody is surprised when what the guidebook describes as a "bike camper's mecca" turns out to be an apparently vacant blue house surrounded by a nearly abandoned seedy campground.



After Bryan nearly bonked yesterday, today is Mandy's turn to be draggy.  We wet her buff down again and dig through our panniers for the last decent snacks.  Bryan rides off to find some kind of cold caffeinated something, and returns with Cokes for all of us.  We rest on what looks like a broken stage near the blue house, wishing for cooler weather.  It's been nearly a hundred degrees all week.

We drag across the bridge into Boonville ready for our luck to change, and it does.  We have to ask several people for directions to the Aquatic Center. “The what?” “The aquatic center.” “The WHAT?” “The pool.” “Oh.” Finally, a parks and recreation employee cames along pulling weeds and gives us good directions, and here we are.

It’s a great pool. Four dollars admission, with waterslides and a lily pad rope bridge and a giant spill bucket. The showers are clean and the drinks are a dollar. We’re enjoying the cool water and the nice breeze and the feeling of being cleaner than we’ve been for days. And more cheerful, too.  And hungry again.

On the way back to the trail we stop at Glenn’s Café, in the Hotel Frederick, for supper. It’s the spot Bob’s cousin told us she’d like to try sometime. The 1905 Hotel was bought and restored just a few years ago, and it’s wonderful. Everything’s old and heavy-looking  and interesting.  Even the stalls in the bathroom are made from heavy old polished wood.



Glenn’s is an unexpectedly Creole/Midwestern place - their ‘crawfish beignets’ are more like hushpuppies, and they don’t have sweet tea. Mandy has crab cakes with a salad, Bryan chooses a spicy fish, and I have beautiful cornmeal battered oysters. Still hungry after the meal, Bryan orders what we call a dessert salad and we finish up with the key lime pie, recommended highly by our waitress.

We were underdressed by a mile but our waitress is perfect and the lady at the front desk smiles and charges my phone, and we laugh and laugh at our clean nails and full bellies.  And then we realize that it's eight o’clock and we still have to buy tomorrow’s groceries and ride eleven miles before bedtime.  Oops.

 

As we stand on the sidewalk wondering what to do, an older couple out dog-walking stop to say hello.  We ask if there's public camping available in town, but they can't think of a place.  Sam goes inside to use a phone book and comes out a few minutes later with permission (from the police office) for us to sleep at Harley Park, next to the ballfield.

And so here we are, in our tent on the floor of Shelter House Four. There are ball games going on up the hill, but down here it’s pretty quiet. The mosquitors are huge and hungry. The lights in the shelter house probably turn off with the other lights at eleven.  Our trip mojo has improved.  Mandy says it's because she hasn't been brushing her teeth.

Katy Trip Day 4 (Tebbetts - Huntsdale)

This is a multi-part trip report. If you haven't already, you should start with Part 1. Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

Click here to see todays route map.




We briefly rename this trip “Tour de Places that HAVE NO FOOD.” The old restaurant in Tebbetts is closed this morning. Hoping for breakfast in a few miles, we hit the trail. But Wainwright is only a sign in the road, there’s nothing more than wild mulberries at the trailhead in North Jefferson.

The Claysville store is only open on weekends, and none of the three restaurants in Hartsburg served lunch today. Disappointed and hungry, we dig snacks out of our bags and then took a nap on the cool concrete in front of a vacant bike shop.



Everything is covered in dirt. Our bikes have a thick layer of  light grey dust, and our panniers are filthy. Our water bottles taste like dirt. Bryan keeps getting tiny pieces of gravel stuck in his pannier clips, so that either he can’t get the bags on the bike, or he can’t get them off.

In Wilston, the funny little store is closed but the owner is just across the road “getting ready for the flood” so he unlocks Riverview Traders and sells us cold drinks.  There’s high water moving quickly down the Mississippi, already breaking levees in Iowa. The water may be worse this year than in 1993. We head for Coopers Landing, having heard that they serve Thai food and cheap beer.

We finally pull in to Cooper's around four, hot and tired and ready to eat. The guidebook's made this place sound like a busy place with great food, but there's only a scruffy, creepy campground. The Thai place, actually an old motor home with a broken sign, wasn’t open.  We finally find a door into what seems to be either the front of a store or the back of the store. We choose some snacks, since actual food isn't available - but no one ever arrives to help us. We see men in the next room, and even wave at them when they look up, but they stay in their recliners. Finally I open the door, and one of them waves vaguely in my direction and says ‘just leave money on the counter.” 

 

Finally, we eat the first actual meal of the day at nearly 6 pm, at Lucy's Bar in McBaine.  It has air conditioning, chairs, a table, and a smartass waitress. I love the feeling of small-town bars in the middle of the day. While we devour burgers and pie, a little boy flaps in the front door carrying a homemade bow and arrow. He's told he can't shoot inside, and he goes out the back. A mom with a preschooler and a baby arrives, orders a beer, and smokes a cigarette at the bar while feeding the little one in a highchair. The older girl runs out to get a bag of ice for the waitress. A young man comes in, moves the pool table, and leaves without saying a word. Another boy, older than the first one, comes through the back door dragging a stick along the floor. “What are you doing with that?” “Cade’s gonna make me a bow, too!” And he wanders out the front, as if dragging a large stick through a restaurant is the sort of thing he does every day of his life.

We end the day at Katfish Katy's, a simple campground in a cleared field on the river. The bathrooms are clean, and there are trees for the hammocks at the water's edge.  We say hello to the other cyclists in camp, a man named Chad and his nine-year-old daughter, Sophie. It’s still warm but there’s a brisk breeze off the river, and it’s shady. We set up, do our laundry in the bathroom sink, and finally have some time to lay in the hammocks and watch the river go by. Chad comes back from their ride to Lucy’s with three beers, and we sit and talk to the other cyclists who’ve just arrived before taking showers and going to bed.

Katy Trip Day 3 (Marthasville - Tebbetts)

This is a multi-part trip report. If you haven't already, you should start with Part 1. Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

Click here to see todays route map.

Marthasville is quiet at night, but gets noisy very early. The trash man comes at about four am, and it isn’t long after that when farm trucks start powering up and down the highway and chains and doors start banging at the gas station across the way.

The ride to Peers is pleasant, but we’re feeling slow this morning. We eat breakfast sandwiches in the ratty room off the little store here, listening to the locals visit at the next table.  Their subject this morning is the flood: it’s bad in Iowa already, and the river here is already full - it’s forecast to start serious flooding as early as next week. The talk is that this flood could be as bad as it was in ‘93, and there are photos on the wall showing the store in different years, including in ‘93, when the water came up almost to the awning on the first floor doorway.



While we eat, laundry dries on the lines strung between our bikes, just outside the door.  Kids get dropped off and then picked up - the store seems to be a sort of stop along the way for pretty much everyone in town.  No guns allowed.

It's hot, but I’m feeling much better than I was before the trip. The Zyrtec is doing a wonderful job at controlling allergy symptoms, though it’s possible I just don’t have such bad allergies here in mid-Missouri anymore. I started taking ibuprofen for my chest and it’s helped tremendously, both to reduce my discomfort in breathing and to eliminate those wild coughing fits.

We share a lunch of fried chicken and various kinds of starch and giant glasses of Pepsi at the unexpectedly exciting grocery in McKittrick. We’re less than halfway through today, and already Bryan and Mandy are feeling draggy. It’s really hot. Bryan’s already lost a glove. I think I ran over a lizard. Mandy says our trip has bad mojo because I made her brush her teeth.

The cicadas are out this year, and they're thick on parts of the trail, dive-bombing our faces and shoulders as we ride.  We ride through little towns, marked on the map, but really nothing more than a house, a barn, and a couple of green signs. They’re spaced about five miles apart, so we make it our goal to stop at each one, rest in the shade, and have a drink.

  

It’s another really hot day. I cool myself at stops with a wet towel; Mandy’s keeping her buff wet; Bryan’s drinking a lot more even than usual. Mandy’s drooping, so we let her listen to music while she pedals west.  Later, we come upon her standing in the road, over a large dark thing. It’s an enormous alligator snapping turtle. It startled her so much that she dropped the bike, trying not to hit it. We take a couple of photos, and Bryan offers it a stick to bite, but it’s having none of that - it turns around, rises up on its legs, and RUNS off the embankment, jumping (or falling) into the water.

We pull into the tiny town of Portland to find a boat ramp into the river and some other cyclists. She’s from Seattle and he’s her brother from St. Louis. They have a little boy with them, Shannon, and as soon as he sees me putting my bike on a Click-Stand, he runs across the road brandishing his own stick. It’s not until we’ve "fenced" for awhile that I realize he has a Click-Stand too. When I poke him in the belly, he says “touche”.

I have never, never, never sweated so much in a pit toilet as I do in Portland, Missouri. It’s hot. There’s a bar here, though you’d never know it from looking - it’s just a white building with windows and a door.

Along the way, we find a big rock next to the trail, with flood levels marked on the sides going back to the 1800s. Another cyclist stops to talk. He looks pretty beat and is looking for a motel nearby. We tell him to ask at the bar in Portland, but gosh, I don’t know what he’ll find. I hope he’s okay.

In Mokane, we eat supper at a ratty-looking bar. I ask what beers they have and the guy says “Bud, Bud Light, Miller Light, Busch Light … and maybe some dark stuff.” “Like what?” I have a grilled cheese sandwich, fried clam strips, and an Amberbock. Mandy eats every molecule of what she declared to be the best double bacon cheeseburger ever made, right down to the limp mustardy lettuce that falls onto her plate. I take a mouthful of chewed-up burger to the little bird we found outside: I move him to a shady spot in some grass and gave him a snack and a drink. He’ll probably die anyway, but at least I try to help.

The hostel in Tebbetts is adequate but nowhere close to clean or nice. Lots of other cyclists are here tonight - a there's a big group from the Kansas City area, and an older man riding with three boys. I assume that these are his grandsons, and that their support driver is the boys’ dad. What a great thing to do with your grandpa.

Katy Trip Day 2 (St. Charles - Marthasville)

This is a multi-part trip report. If you haven't already, you should start with Part 1. Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

Click here to see todays route map.

For a hundred reasons, today does not start as planned. We sleep later than we’d intended, and don’t leave the house until about eight.

By nine, we've bought new allergy medicine for me, lots of snacks for the trail, and a bizarre breakfast.  Walgreens shopping excursion complete, we eat breakfast on the benches outside.

Then it's back down to the Katy, through the historic St. Charles main street, with brick streets and old buildings with wavy glass. Main street’s still asleep this morning, except for one old man washing down the bricks in front of his shop. Once on the trail, we pass lots of small park development, with side trails and monuments and picnic areas. There’s a dog park, then a junkyard, then miles of trail. We’re on our way…

…in the wrong direction. We ride nearly ten miles toward Machens before realizing that the mile markers are going down rather than up. We’ve been grumpy with each other already this morning, but having made a big mistake somehow cheers everybody up, and we turn around and go back the way we’ve come.

It’s noon by the time we’re back in St. Charles.  The ride’s uneventful after that: hot, but not too unpleasant. The trail’s cheerfully busy but not really crowded. We cruise through the dappled shade, making a point to say hello to other riders, passing through Weldon Spring and Defiance, stopping every five miles or so for a quick rest in the shade.

Many of the towns along the way were truly railroad towns, built when the train first came through this area. In fact, many were named for owners or builders or investors in the Katy. The people in the town now named Defiance wanted a stop in their community, but the railroad planners wouldn’t do it. They gave the people lots of requirements and the people complied, but still the railroad said no. Angry, the town's residents decided to ship their grain and goods by river instead of rail, and the railroad relented and made a stop there, and the name of the town was changed to Defiance.

The brewpub in Augusta is a welcome break from the heat. We all have brats and drinks and sit inside for awhile, but move outside after we eat. This place is like a cross between a bar and a very relaxed neighborhood block party. I fall asleep in my chair, listening to a bad band play. We're not near them, so the quality doesn't really matter.

Then it's back to the trail for the ride to Marthasville.  Mandy and I ride into town to have a snack at the KT Caboose while Bryan gets in touch with the guy who gave us permission to camp at the ballpark.

When he called to make arrangements to stay here, the man he talked to failed to mention that there’d be games going on until ten. But here’s the whole population of the elementary school, along with their parents, in dirty uniforms running around the ball fields and the playgrounds.

Just as we pulled into the ballfield, a very scary moment:  a big bug flew deep inside my right ear, and stayed there. Bryan and Mandy are afraid of bugs, not me, but it was still awful. Mandy held my bike while Bryan looked into my ear with a light, then stuck his key into my ear canal to herd the bug out. Just then, Mandy saw a big bug on Bryan’s cheek and tried to brush it off, scaring him and making him jerk while still holding the key inside my ear. He poked me while smacking Mandy, who nearly dropped my bike, and in the confusion the bug decided that he’d find more peaceful accommodations, and flew away.

We set up our tents at the very edge of the outfield, near the concession stand, right next to the parking area. We had lots of interesting conversations with the little kids, who came wandering over from the swingset. “Hey mister, are you stayin’ here tonight?” “Yes, we are.” “Are you sleepin’ in THAT?” “Yes.” “I haven’t never slept outside before.” “Well, you should ask your mom and dad to let you camp.” “No, no, my mom and dad don’t like that stuff.” Then, the littler girl next to him: “Yes, and I …” and she trailed off into gibberish as she made a grand and ridiculous I Love Lucy gesture to the side, rising up onto her little tiptoes, after which they both skipped off toward the concession stand.

Aaaaah, the beautiful concession stand. We eat cheap hamburgers with cold canned beer and they taste wonderful. After everyone goes home, we take showers and do laundry in the bathroom sinks and now it’s time to sleep, under the scoreboard lights.

Katy Trip: Getting Ready

This summer, Mandy switched around her visit to Tulsa so that she could go to her Audubon camp.  That shifted the time we could set aside for a family vacation from super-hot early August to hopefully-nicer early June.

As a teenager, I rode parts of the Katy Trail in Missouri.  It's about 250 miles of mostly-flat packed limestone gravel, running from St. Charles (just west of St. Louis) all the way across the state to Clinton, Missouri.  We've been wanting to ride the whole length of the trail as a family.  An early-June vacation seemed like a good time to give it a try.


Here's a link to a map of the trail.

We bought a guidebook to the trail way back last year, and had been daydreaming over it ever since.  The Katy is the longest rail-trail in the US!  A landmark state park system!  With friendly little towns and ice cream shops and cyclist-centered campgrounds all along the way!  And historical thingamajigs!  All just one state north of us.

To make the trip a little more challenging (and fun), we decided to leave the car in Little Rock and do the whole eight-day vacation using alternative transportation.  We pieced together a route using mostly Amtrak, but also the public transit buses and light rail in St. Louis.  And, of course, the touring bikes.  It'll be the longest trip any of us have ever taken by bike, and we'll be doing it together.  With stops for ice cream.

Lake Sylvia by Bike

We met Gordon and Lois and the girls for a two-day trip from the Lake Sylvia area out to Forked Mountain to spend the night.  It was a great ride - about 35 miles almost entirely on gravel, with some swimming and camping in the middle.  It was peaceful and quiet and traffic just didn't exist.  Some of the hills were steep, but I figure that's what I have feet for.  The bombing downhills were scary fun, but so hard that I twisted the headset on the Voyageur once as I fishtailed through loose gravel.  We got sunburns and dirt in our eyes.  Three of our group bailed halfway through, but the rest of us had a fine time.

There's more gravel-road touring in our future; I'm sure of it.

PS - The photo of Bryan's bike up top doesn't actually have anything to do with this trip.  But we didn't have any decent photos from this weekend, so we're pretending that it  belongs here.

Tent Cleaning

Seeing as how this blog's name is "Past Tents", you shouldn't be surprised to find out that we are frequent tent USERS but we're not very good about maintenance. We tend to leave our tents crammed into their stuff sacks for weeks after a camping trip, without airing them out or cleaning them at all.

Finally, we had enough of stinky tents and washed all four of them this afternoon. We scrubbed them down with soapy water, rinsed them, and even soaked each piece in Mirzyme to get rid of that wet-tent smell. We hung our strange laundry on the backyard line to dry in the breeze. Worked like a charm.