As a general impression, these great trails are nearly deserted, at least during the week. I ran into a few long-distance riders and exactly two early-morning riders in IN, but I mostly had the trail to myself. I guess I'm used to rail trails near big cities, especially the Washington and Old Dominion Trail near my home.
The Katy Trail was particularly quiet. I began early enough this morning -- after an amazing breakfast at the Meyers Inn Hilltop House. The morning was cloudy and cool, which was a nice change from yesterday's 95 degrees. Eventually the clouds broke and the weather turned sunny and warm, but it never got very hot. There was just the slightest breeze, but it couldn't decide what direction to blow from. In short, the perfect bicycling day.You will see here some of the pictures from the trail. Alas, while it's interesting to see the flora and fauna of another state, once you've seen five miles, the trail has a tendency to look the same. I deal with this by playing MP3s from a company called the Great Courses. (It used to be known as The Teaching Company). So, as I ambled through the Missouri bottomland, I listened to Professor Dennis Dalton talk about the great political philosophers. My companions were not only Plato and Aristotle, but Machiavelli, Rousseau, Thoreau, and Dostoyevsky. (The latter makes the list because of one chapter in The Brothers Karamazov entitled The Great Inquisitor.)
I was also moving in the footsteps of the Corps of Discovery. Lewis and Clark campsites were all along this river, and their journal mentions several of the topographic formations. The rock face near Little Tavern Creek, for example, was mentioned in one of the corps' diaries.
