Peter Fox is my doppelganger

The rest of my time in Kansas was painful and hilarious. Shortly after the last time that I updated my blog I stopped for the night at the Council Grove City Lake. Even though they didn't have showers, I was elated to be near a body of water deep enough to swim in. I was camping near the boat ramp and marina and did not see anyone swimming at all. I went down by the marina and asked Bob, the retired army who worked 5 days a week at the marina to escape his wife, if there was a specific spot or maybe a beach designated for swimming. He gave the most sarcastic response he could think of, "yeah, uh, well I think they designated the water for swimming in". Thanks Bob. After swimming for a while I decided to go talk with Bob, who was drinking a can of Busch lite and watching teenage girls get in and out of boats on the dock or "taking in the views" as he described it. Bob was probably about 65-70 years old and looked like he could be the grandfather of Cousin Eddie from the movie Vacation. He was wearing overalls with no shirt, a cowboy hat, nicely shined black shoes, and had the creepiest mustache I have ever seen. To be honest I wasn't sure if it was actually a mustache or just a row of wiry white hairs that he had missed while shaving his top lip. He had shaved all of the hair on his face except for a line of hairs on the edge of his top lip, which were long enough to curl down into his mouth. When he wasn't sipping Busch lite he was licking these hairs. The conversation was strange and seemed to always come back to the idea that, "women didn't look like that (the girls getting on and off the boats) when I was your age". At one point Bob offered me a beer saying, "I have Bud and Busch lite". I was feeling dehydrated and declined his offer. "You know why I like Busch?" I prepared myself for a raunchy joke. "I frequently misplace things and when I find my beer a day or two later, I can actually drink it if its Busch." I chuckled a bit and upon realizing that he was serious didn't know what to say. I responded with "well I usually try to finish my beers in a day." To which he replied, "You know, that's not always possible the way I lose things and I am sure not going to let a good beer go to waste." Speaking with Bob was an experience I will not soon forget.

My ride to Council Grove was very windy, but the night I spent there was hands down the windiest I have been in. On multiple occasions the wind was hitting the tent so hard that it tore the tent stakes right out of the ground, practically collapsing it on me. The first time it happened I woke up flustered and started packing my things up half asleep. When I realized what I was doing and what time it was, everything except for the tent was on the bike ready to go. At this point I just left the stuff packed and slept on the floor of the tent without anything under me. Needless to say, it was not a great night sleep.

The ride the next day was disheartening because I only made it 60 miles but rode for nearly 7 hours. It was a struggle to find the motivation to keep riding at under 10 mph. The only thing that kept me going was that the more miles I rode, the closer I would be to the Katy Trail and a much needed change in scenery. The next night I was delighted to stop at another spot with a lake and a place to shower. I spent most of my night enjoying both of these and even traded the time I would have spent preparing dinner for a little extra time swimming. My mother will cringe after reading this next part, but from that night on I found myself buying and eating more canned foods straight from the can. It tastes the same and it saves you the hassle of cooking and cleaning. Beans, Chef Boyardee, canned fruit, chili, and the worst, which I'm slightly embarrassed to say, was a can of Campbell's condensed beef soup straight from the can. Not surprisingly, condensed soup is much better with water and heat. After opening my bag in the dark one night, I found the can of soup right on top. I held it in my hand hoping to find something that didn't require cooking, but was disappointed when the only other thing I had was spaghetti. Initially, I dismissed the idea without much consideration. But after getting out my stove and searching for a place to set it up, the vegetable and beef filled gelatin started to sound better and better. Finally, after opening it and sampling the soup, I choked down the first spoonful. I convinced myself that it wasn't as bad as it was, but looking back on it, it was awful.

A couple notes about Kansas before I move on to Missouri. I did not see a single sunflower in the sunflower state. Kansas is the windiest state I have ever been to. I picked up a state road map, the free one provided by the Kansas Department of Transportation, and on the front of it, it said, "Kansas...as big as you think." This is false. Kansas is bigger than anyone ever thought. I don't even think that most residents of Kansas realize how big the place is. Everything is bigger in Texas, but Kansas isn't as confident as Texas, so they're going to let you decide how big you think Kansas is. If you drive highways 96 and 56 I think you would agree with me that Kansas is huge. In every state except for Missouri, people driving cars will occasionally wave to me. In Oregon, most people throw up a peace sign. Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado folk generally give a full on wave. Kansas seems to be the exception though. Almost every car I passed in Kansas acknowledged me in some way, but the most common was to point at you with a index finger. The first time I saw this I wasn't sure if the driver was doing this as a threat, as if to say, "Watch yourself...I'm gonna get you sucka!" or if he was simply saying, "you're the man now dawg!" but either way I was confused. Having finished the state and being pointed at a couple hundred times, I think its just a friend hello.

Missouri lays claim to the worst roads that I have ridden to date and the possibly the worst drivers I have ever seen. Upon arriving in the show me state, I took a very long detour as a result of road construction. I now know to avoid roads identified with a letter and to never, under any circumstances, ride roads that are titled with two letters. State route Y in Missouri is in desperate need of a fresh layer of asphalt and lines on the road. State route YY should have the remaining asphalt ground up and turned into a gravel or dirt road. While riding YY I felt like I was playing connect the dots, my bike being the pen and the pot holes at the dots. Changing subjects, I am pretty convinced that the title "show me state" is referring to firearms because I have seen more gun racks in cars here then anywhere in the country. The best one was in a Buick. Drivers in Missouri don't know how to react when they see me riding. Most slow down to my speed and wait for about a minute before passing me. Others have waited for me to stop or turn off, and the best was a couple that honked while cruising behind me at 15 mph and then waved as if to tell me to move off of the road so that they could pass. After dealing with this for a couple hundred miles, I was delighted to get off of the roads and onto the longest "Rails to Trails" path in the country.

The Katy Trail is a 240 mile crushed limestone bike path that runs almost the entire way across Missouri. Formerly the Missouri, Kansas, Texas Railway, the old tracks have been removed and the route is open to hikers and bikers looking to enjoy the heat, humidity, and wide varieties of bugs found along the Missouri River. Getting onto the path was a wonderful change of pace. There is no traffic, there are stops with bathrooms and water every 10-20 miles, and best of all there is tree cover. My first day on the Katy Trail was a crazy day. I arrived at the trail head in Clinton, MO to find 2 guys from the University of Oklahoma. Nick, a 25 year old recently graduated, and Gabe, a 28 year old with another year to go who looked like he was a frequent participant in his local SCA chapter. (www.SCA.org) Easily the best pony tail I have seen on a man or woman in years! In addition to these 2 was a Father with his son and daughter from Texas. They were on a family vacation touring the Katy Trail . (Great family vacation...or GREATEST family vacation!) It seemed that he was taking a lot of heat for the idea. The family took off shortly before me and the other guys did. After talking with them and riding for a bit I thought for sure I would have to ditch them by the end of the day if I wanted to make it anywhere, but I was enjoying the company and conversation so I stuck around. Maybe 5 miles into the ride, we came across the family that we had me earlier and they were having trouble with their tandem bike. We figured out what was going on and helped out with some tools. Once everything was straightened out, we introduced ourselves. When the father said his name was Charlie Brown I laughed thinking that he was kidding around. "Really?" We said. "Yeah really. Well Charles Brown, but I go by Charlie." He spells it with an "-ey" at the end, but I am going to spell it like the character for dramatic effect...Sorry Charley. A few things ran through my head. First, that I just helped fix the bike of one of the most well know and unlucky characters of all time. Second, I thought it was awesome that Charlie fully embraced his name and was even wearing a yellow shirt. Finally, I may have just met the guy with the worst middle school experience of all time.

All of us continued on the trail and eventually stopped at some local cafe where Charlie Brown bought us lunch. That's right, Charley Brown bought me lunch. As I sat eating with all of these people I said to the other 2 guys, "they'll never believe us." But I have proof. If you look at the names of the people following this blog, you with see Charley Brown that the most recognizable Peanut of all time is following along. Thanks again for lunch Charley!

We left lunch just after a woman stopped to inform us that there was a horrendous storm coming our way with wind gust between 50-80 mph. Not even 20 miles down the road, we ran into another guy. Justin was having trouble with his tires, 3 flats in one day. Thinking how well the last encounter I had was, I decided to stop and help the guy out. We patched his tire, only to have the patch give out before he had his bike loaded back up. Reluctantly, I gave him my last spare innertube knowing that there was a bad storm on the way and a bike shop in the next town. We arrived in Sedalia, MO just as the storm started to hit. Hungry and unsure where the bike shop was, we stopped in at a Chinese Buffet to wait out the storm. As we were leaving I noticed that my front tire was looking low and decided to pump it up before leaving for the bike shop. As I put the pump on the valve the whole top portion broke off letting out all of the air in the tube. This was bound to happen and has reinforced the idea that you never give away your last innertube...ever! Still unsure where and how far the bike shop was, I looked it up and gave a call. Closed. Of course they were closed. Why wouldn't they be? I was forced to walk to and camp out at the Missouri State Fairgrounds until the bike shop opened. I was later informed by my Dad that Sedalia, specifically the MSF was home to a huge music fest even bigger than Woodstock. There was not a trace of towns history anywhere to be found, but after a couple of Google searches I found that the Ozark Music Festival of 1974 was one of the largest music festivals of all time. (http://rodsievers.googlepages.com/ozarkmusicfestival) It drew over 250,000 people to the place I camped and in a Senate investigation was recognized as a weekend of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll." It was cool to read the history of the place that I was camped at. I had my tent right beside the Sheep Pavilion, which I later read was the location of a "sex orgy, with hundreds spectators." This was the first time that I had ever heard of the OMF and proceeded to ask every person that I had a conversation with on the Katy trail, especially Missouri residents, if they had heard of the Festival. Not a single person knew anything. Nobody had even heard about it. I was shocked, but still think its awesome that I was able to stay there.

The next morning I arrived at Cecil's Cyclery where I picked up some tubes and talked with the old guy that owned the place for a little while. He specialized in old Chicago made Schwinn bicycles and even had a couple in their original boxes. I think I will return and buy a bike from Cecil at some point in the near future. I left Sedalia and continued down the Katy trail happy to have the spare parts I needed and a new found interest in the Ozark Music Festival. If nothing else, it gave me something new to think and read about when I wasn't on the bike.

The rest of the Katy trail was kind of rough, literally. The further along the Katy trail I rode, the more I found large pot holes or places where rain water washed out large 1-2 foot sections of limestone. The actual trail was getting difficult to ride without a mountain bike. One of the last days that I was riding it, I hit a huge wash out and broke a spoke for the second time this trip. I was about 10 miles from the nearest town and it was getting dark. I rode in the pitch black tunnel of trees with nothing but a small headlamp to guide me. I hit several more bumps and arrived at a campsite and began setting up my tent when my headlamp went out. I was angry, frustrated and trying to stay positive when the headlamp went out and I lost it. I let out a rant that was more colorful than the crowd of people that showed up in Sedalia in 1974 and went to bed shortly after finishing my condensed soup.

The next day I woke up ready to fix my spoke to find I no longer had the tool I needed to do so. I rode the 10 miles into Herman, MO where I found a bike shop and had the spoke replaced. I spent a few more hours in Herman touring the many wineries in the city. After close to a bottle worth of sampling, I was picked up by my good friend Kevin whom I haven't seen in a long time. I was elated to see him! Kevin picked me up and drove me back to St. Louis where I was planning on hanging out for the weekend. On the phone Kevin asked me, "if I drive you, doesn't that go against the ethos of the trip?" I agreed that it did, but I was willing to make exceptions reflecting on the time I had trying to get out of Denver and the condition the Katy trail was in as of late.

St. Louis has been a blast! My stay has included a whole lot of delicious and fattening foods, admiring architecture, and a lot of baseball. I hate the Cardinals even more after spending time here. I have been alternating time at Kevin's apartment in the city and my friend Tim's parents house in the suburbs. A new slogan, motto, mantra, or rule to live by has been adopted in my time spent here in St. Louis. To preface the tag line, I must tell a story. A few nights ago, I was at the house of one of Tim's high school friends. After a few beers we decided to climb onto the roof. We spent a decent amount of time up there telling stories and hanging out until we got bored and decided to go back inside. As we stood up and got ready to climb down, Tim's friend Justin stops, looks at us and says, "Fortune favors the bold," and proceeds to leap off of the roof...in flip flops! Sure that he was going to have a few broken bones from the way he landed, Tim says to me "this is going to be an awesome ride to the hospital." We asked Justin if he had broken his ankles to which he responded "no but I did knock the wind out of myself pretty good." Fortune favors the bold defined the rest of the night and madness ensued. This is a dangerous motto, but I feel it is fitting for my trip and have decided to adopt it as the official slogan.

-Marcus