We lingered in the morning, in no rush. Once packed up, we went to a café for a breakfast that included a piece of pie apiece, made (according to the waitress) by the Amish. If that’s true, the Amish are buying their pie fillings in tin cans and they have forgotten how to make a flaky crust. I only finished mine because cherry pie has to be respected. Nora felt no such obligation with her apple pie.
After a 24-mile ride remarkable only for its beautiful solitude, we rolled into Sedalia mid afternoon for a night at Hotel Bothwell. Oh… also remarkable was the fact that on our way we passed the highest point on the Katy Trail, nicely marked so we wouldn’t miss it. 955 feet. No wonder we had trouble breathing normally.
Hotel Bothwell is also remarkable. Its first full year of operation was 97 years ago, the same year my mom was born. They’ve both held up pretty well, although the Bothwell has been remodeled and my mom hasn’t.
President Wilson was at the Bothwell when he found out he’d been elected president. Other notaries have also stayed there, including us, although there was no mention of adding us to the historical record.
There are two elevators: one they trusted us with and another that has to be operated by hotel staff because it used to be one of those “manned” elevators. There is also a fancy letter drop so we could have dropped a letter from the fifth floor for pickup on the first floor. Pity we didn’t have a letter to mail. Pity too that doesn’t work for emails; we would’ve tried it.
We were allowed to put our bicycles in our room, hauling them up one at a time because our elevator wasn’t exactly spacious. Nor, it turns out, were the rooms. Fortunately I had unknowingly reserved a suite because in keeping with tradition the rooms are still rather tiny by modern standards. There was room for the two of us in one half of the suite, and room for the two bicycles in the other. Period.
We asked about a good place to eat and since the options were limited, we opted for a bar and grill even though I’m rather suspicious that those places spend a lot more time vetting bar tenders than cooks. I mean really, how good does the food have to be after you’ve had a few drinks?
Our walk to the bar/grill took us past the square with the courthouse and not much else. We should have counted the number of attorneys’ offices around the square. Clearly the lawyers have driven out the merchants, so it was all about as interesting as a row of big windows decorated by attorneys.
Patriotic emblems reminded us that the 4th of July is coming up, and that hundreds of people have died securing our place in the world, but we were the only two people there to ponder their heroism.
Suspicions confirmed. We couldn’t exactly say the Reuben and the Gyro were bad, but neither did we take pictures of them to post on social media. While we ate, drivers of very loud, unmuffled vehicles roared past, leaving us to wonder what it is that motivates men (yup, they were all men) to make such loud noise without regard for how anyone else might feel about it. One had a cross on his back window, so maybe it was a form of evangelism or he was trying to give us an idea what hell might be like.
We walked home the long way so we could look for something more interesting than the square, but got back empty-handed. There was an ancient old church with ancient old stained glass windows, and more attorney’s offices, and a big cannon.
We were asleep shortly after 8 and stayed that way for 9.5 hours. This business of biking takes its toll, no matter how relaxing it is.