A hot ride

There is no way getting around it: it is hot.

After spending four hours being transported to the trailhead in Clinton, MO, we are ready to hit the road. And after a quick lunch we do just that.

We face a stiff breeze as we start our 38 mile ride to Sedalia. The crushed stone trail crackles as our tires run over it. We are surrounded by farmland dedicated to corn and feedstock for cattle. Even though it is Sunday, many a farmer is cutting down grass to harvest for hay.

The Katy trail runs on an old railroad bed, which is elevated from the surrounding land. It keeps you on the trail, which is good as the sides are filled with plants that should be looked at but not touched: poison ivy, wild parsnip, poison sumac, poison hemlock and (I think) giant hogweed.

We continue forward.

Given the heat, we savor the shade afforded by a canopy of trees when we pedal through them and look forward to the next one when we leave. Most of the roads we cross are crushed stone, like the trail, and vehicles in the distance can be seen by the dust clouds they kick up with their movement.

Like all rail-trails, the inclines are slight giving us the ability to push forward with minimal effort. Besides the more toxic plants girdling the trail, milkweed as well as butterfly weed is abundant, which perhaps explains the large number of butterflies that flitter by us on our journey. Happily I spot both swallowtails and monarchs.

The towns we pass through all have old, abandoned grain elevators in common, leftovers from when the railroad was functional. Passing over a bridge, a group of cows rest and cool themselves in a stream.

We reach the halfway point at Windsor and it is time to stop and rest. The temperature is still well above 90 and I decide to take a cat nap beneath the shade of the station awning. Ted goes to a nearby store for cold drinks. They hit the spot. We are ready to continue.

But before we go, an Amish family dressed in black, in a black carriage being pulled by a black horse pulls into the road, slowing traffic.

I should not complain about the warmth.

Fortunately, the heat has finally broken and a slight breeze provides a welcome chill (though not much). A lone coyote stands in a hayed field, watching for opportunities or perhaps other predators. There is much scat on the trail, so wildlife is abundant.