Day 11: Hills, Chills, Thrills, and Spills!

Washington, MO to Troy, MO

Stats!
Miles biked today: 44.5
Total miles biked: 356.8
Max speed: 25.5 mph
# of horses that chased us: 4
# of cows we chased: 3
# of hound dog nubbin' teeth seen during a major howling session: 2
# of rabid possum attempted assaults: 1

Despite a weather report predicting showers all day and a high of 61, we set out early this morning, heading for Troy (or, if we felt really great, to Cuivre Park). Leaving Washington during rush hour was okay, but we had a few angry commuters. Boo.

By the time we hit Dutzow, about 5 miles down the road, we already needed a break to warm up inside a restaurant. We weren't hungry at all, but we were cold and wet, so we hid out awhile and had a Gatorade. There were still many miles to go!

We got back on the Katy Trail to get to Marthasville. Dean thinks the Katy Trail must disagree with him, since he ended up taking a minor spill on a very slippery bridge, and then ran over some debris from yesterday's storm, causing his fender to break and knocking his wheel out of true. We had to take a minor repair break, but got back on the road quickly enough. We still both really liked biking the Katy -- it was beautiful with lots of wildlife, and FLAT! Not all the wildlife is great, though. Along the way I spotted a small critter ahead that I thought might be a skunk. As we got closer we could see that it was a possum. It was active in the day and didn't seem very scared of us, which made us worry it could be rabid. It did run away at the very last second, thankfully. The last thing we need is a rabid possum attack.

Our route took us off the Katy after Marthasville, where.... we got lost! This is one of the really frustrating things about helpful small town folk -- they're not helpful. The map gave us directions that didn't make sense. Dean consulted google maps, but we couldn't find the street we wanted. We went into a gas station shop and asked the clerk. She said we needed to go back into the center of town via One St., and turn left on Pecan St. We headed off. No Pecan St. But! We did find the street we had been looking for previously, and headed on.

The rest of today's ride was kind of alphabet soup. We started on highway D, found our way to O, moved to M, then WW, then J, then F and crossed an intersection with OO. I kind of like the letter system. What I didn't like was the start of highway O. We hit the worst hill of the whole trip, other than Afton mountain. It was awful -- seemingly never ending and steep. I took a picture when we reached the top (see left), but it doesn't look nearly as impressive as it actually was. Dean said you can't take a picture of a hill -- it never looks like it really is. We hit about five tough hills, including that one killer, and the rest was relatively flat. There were lots of what we would have called tough hills on day 2, but that henceforth shall be known as "chump bumps" on this blog.

We got to Wright City at about 12:30, and were frozen to the bone. The wind was really strong all day -- headwinds. It was really chilling and also it really slowed us down. I'd never had to pedal DOWN a hill before today. The wind was so strong we could barely roll downhill. And it was doubly brutal rushing down a steep hill that we were trying to climb. We had to make a few wind shelter stops, and my toes went a little numb from the cold. But we made decent time to Wright City anyway, and Dean had been dreaming of soup. We found Hillbilly Heaven (and, boy, was it ever!), where we had hot coffee, hot chili, and hot sandwiches. I didn't want to head back out into the rain and cold!


Also at Hillbilly Heaven, we met a table full of the chattiest elderly folks in all of Missouri. They were very excited to talk to us about EVERYTHING -- the tornadoes, our trip, their motorcycle travels (49 states and only North Dakota left!), their Thursday hairdressing schedule (every Thursday for the last 60 years!), hog pellets, grandkids in college, gas prices, and everything else they could squeeze in before we finally just had to go. They were very, very nice, but also members of the eager-to-help-with-directions-but-ultimately-useless club. One of them even said there was no such road as N Stringtown Road, even though we rode down it. But then, Dean kept calling it Stringbean Road, so I guess we're all useless.

On our way to Troy from Wright City, we had a couple more dogs chase us. One actually scared me (the first to actually worry me so far) because he got very close to us and growled a lot. The other one was an old Bassett hound, and he just howled and howled and howled as he chased us down the road. We were the most exciting thing to happen in his life, and he was eager to sound the alarm as we passed through. As he was howling, I noticed that he only had two teeth, on the bottom, and they were just nubs. His owner yelled at him from the house. Apparently his name is Buford. Very fitting, I think.

By the time we rolled into Troy we were frozen again and exhausted. Cuivre Park was just not going to happen in weather like this. But we're cozy and well fed now, and getting ready for tomorrow. It will be a tough one!

Cherry Blossom Rd. Shi mo!