Just a guy and his bike and a beer. In the midafternoon. At a festival. Right smack dab on the trail. Nothing more to see here. Move it along. Back to the beginning.

It’s interesting to wake up in a place and you have no idea what it looks like or where you are. After camping in total pitch darkness I wake up and see the spread of Katy Roundhouse all around me. Suns out. Still cold. The kinda cold that slaps even harder when I go to fill a water bottle and the water coming from underground is MUCH warmer than the air. With only a handful of guests. I move into a sunny area with a picnic table. Then another. I use that expanse to give my tent and rain fly a chance to dry from the dew. Yes I do the dew. Rain fly on this table, foot print on another, towels hanging on a branch. My shit is over 4 or 5 campsites getting as dry as it can while I sip coffee and type this. Dew. Dew. Doo doo. I don’t have any food left and 15 miles up the road to the capital of Missouri, Jefferson City. Where there’s food and more.

My legs are sore as usual this morning. This trail is well worth it though. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, back when it was laying tracks, bought up a 100 foot wide tract of land even though they only needed 20 to put in a railroad, but that’s just the kind of shit you do when you’re playing with real Monopoly money. Works out for us now. This thang is wonderful. It’s wide and completely packed down, crushed limestone. What’s really cool is that since we’ve over farmed every square inch of fertile land in this country that extra 80 feet of railroad right away is now allowing for natural and native prairie grass and flora to regrow and populate sections. That’s baller. And whaaaattt… let’s go back to “less coffee my ass” because there’s a coffee shop. Right. On. The. Trail. And it’s good.

Fork in the round here at the 9 mile spur into Columbia. I spend and hour sitting here. Drinking coffee. Stretching. Greeting other long haulers. Some also camping. Do I go into the city — it’s also an entirely car free route — or stay out in the woods. I stank.i read out Darwin Hindman. Mayor of Columbia and a big reason this trail exists. Passed away in 2019. Seems like he was a real G.

I decide to avoid people and the city. Stay on the trail. It’s quiet. Then that festival happens. A mid 70s woman I wanna call Bonnie asks if I’m a Missouri voter, then flirts with me every time our paths cross. Her guy, I’m calling Clyde does nothing but meander drunkenly around and brag about how he finally lost his old lady roaming around somewhere. They do not rob me but they are hilarious. After a couple hours of fun I push out, the campground here is gonna be too loud for me tonight.

Bluebirds. Plenty of roadkills. Finally some wild life. And live stock. The bluebirds though. Quite blue. The state bird is the Eastern Bluebird.

When you just have to turn your head to the right only slightly for the moon and the sun to both be out in the sky and in your viewpoint together at the same time whilst pedaling. That would be a bomb add title to the weirdest poem ever. Probably in long format Heiku.

Hartsburg volunteer park free camping. This is the heart. Hart. Land. Middle of Missouri, my map-minded mammals. It’s also the coldest night yet I sleep with the magic rain jacket on dog barking all fucking night. Multiple dogs multiple locations. All clearly barking at me. And I literally mean all night… the population of this town is in the three digits and these barks echo throughout the one intersection. How does anyone here sleep? And who let the dogs out?

NIGHT TIME

A few doze offs here and there. I give up sleeping yet again, right around the time the dogs finally go to sleep and the trucks start moving through the area again. It is cold and it is wet. Still. Moore do. Moor Due. More Dew. Nothing’s been fully dry since mile 12.

Jeff City. Dolomite you say.

Dolomite is both an anhydrous carbonate mineral and a sedimentary rock composed of calcium magnesium carbonate. The Jefferson City Formation is a major geological layer composed almost entirely of dolomite rock.

First named by geologist Arthur Winslow for its prominent exposures in Cole County, the formation dates back to the Early Ordovician period (roughly 470 to 485 million years ago), when much of Missouri was covered by a warm, shallow sea.

Dolemite is also a 1975 American blaxploitationcrime comedy film and is also the name of its principal character, played by Rudy Ray Moore.

There’s a really good joke buried somewhere in all this, ya dig?!

Clothing Tetris. I now wear every combination of clothing in various combinations. Layering. Delayering. Relayering. It all fits together however I need it. Very little is still clean but I definitely packed appropriately.

No sleep til Bluffton. It’s bluffs galore out here. Limestone. I pass up three primitive campsites, a paid campsite with a shower, an indoor bike hostel with a shower and push the extra mileage to a self check-in, honor system campground I hope has a shower. Steamboat junction at sunset. Not one other human alive. Or dead, yet. There’s a registration envelope and drop box for dead presidents. I don’t have Hamilton so you gets a Jackson. It’s getting dark and I can’t find anything. There better be showers. No one here. Whoa. Find em! Yes. Heated little room too. Out door crapper butt this shower room is tits. Dry out and charge up and such.