The Katy Trail Day 3
Our mileage is increasing. 34 today. Or 35. We’re not sure, although as tightly as we count our miles, one would think we’d know. It’s just that the GPS sometimes gets even more confused than we do.
We had breakfast in the small Truman dining room in the basement. If I were Truman, I’d be disappointed, both in the size of the room and the breakfast. But being me, I’d be happy to have any part of the hotel, including the tiny original elevator, named for me. Snell Lift has a ring to it. In case I hadn’t mentioned it, Truman was at the hotel when he found out he’d been elected president.
When we finished breakfast we headed up to floor 5 just as one of the hotel staff was getting ready to go up. “Would you like to ride in the original one?” She asked. We jumped at the chance, watched her pull the grate across the opening, and imagined ourselves chatting with Truman on the way up. “What did you think about the headline in the Chicago Tribune this morning?” I’d ask.
The day had its ups and downs. Never much up, never much down, but when you’re hauling gear every up is a downer. The high point was running into a cluster of men at one of the depots. They were co-workers at an energy plant in Texas until one of them retired.
“Not sure how he can say he retired,” muttered one. “He never did anything.” Turns out the one who retired was a manager. The rest had worked for him.
I asked which energy plant and when they answered, I asked, “So were you the ones responsible for all the energy outages during Snowmaggeddon in Texas a few years ago?” Nothing like opening the door to all kinds of finger-pointing and excuse-making, all in good humor. Short answer? “Yes.” Longer answer, “It was their fault we couldn’t get enough natural gas to keep the power plants running.”
But guilt wasn’t their forte. “Remember the power problems in California a few years back? The Enron scandal? That was us too.” Maybe out on the Katy Trail talking to strangers is the perfect place for confession and redemption. We were all laughing as they rode off, leaving us in their wake.
Here’s the thing we’re learning. A lot of people who ride the trail end to end have a charter company working with them. The company provides shuttles not only to get them to the far end of the trail, but also to arrange their lodging and shuttle their baggage along the way. Once we figured that out, we were no longer intimidated by unencumbered people leaving us in the dust. In fact, we became the Cool Kids — the old-timers who actually carried all their stuff with them and arranged their own lodging. So 1950’s.
It looked to me like the others who lugged their own luggage were mostly campers with lightweight tents and sleeping pads that we wouldn’t get much sleep on. They rode more like our speed. Speed is probably not the right word.
We went through a couple tunnels that were made of corrugated steel so we felt pretty much like wild animals in culverts, but the pictures turned out great. Nora says they make us look like rock stars, but that’s only because no one has heard us sing in a culvert. It’s not exactly star material, but the echoes are rewarding.
Once again our hotel in Boonville was in the historic district. Also known as the abandoned district. Picture old buildings, of which Hotel Franklin is one. Their selling point is they have a special room designated for bicycles, which is where we met another group of men riding together. I suppose there is a certain amount of bonding that comes from all parking your bicycles in the same room at the same time.
Nora immediately bonded with one man who reminded her of her cousin Rick, so they talked bicycle equipment. We’ve learned that when people meet on the trail, the first question is, “Where are you from?” And the second question is, “Where did you get your helmet brims?” Or your panniers, or your kickstands, or your whatever. It’s not the place for sob stories about your childhood or your career ambitions or what you think is the essence of a successful life. It’s all about equipment.
The hotel is old (1890-something) and has a cool vibe. Like here you are living just like your great grandparents did except that they never stayed in hotels. Things creak and we got a real key on a real wooden fob and the desk and floors were clearly old wood. None of that prepared us for our room.
At some point in its series of remodels, someone decided that our room would be much more appealing if the bathroom were surrounded by glass walls. Like a fish tank. Sink, toilet, shower all open for full viewing. I can only imagine that the designer was sick and tired of her husband taking too long in the bathroom. Or vice versa. Or maybe the original bathroom didn’t have any walls at all and this was a great leap toward modernization.
To compensate for this rather shocking design, there was a little bathroom down at the end of our hall with a sink and toilet. Not comfortable having your roommate watch your every movement? Go down the hall to where you actually have a door to close. “Bizarre” comes to mind but doesn’t exactly capture it.
That’s not all. In this old, old hotel, at the other end of the hall was a door to another guest room, with frosted glass panels on both sides. Nora was walking down the hall in search of ice and happened to catch a rather graphic silhouette of a woman who apparently didn’t realize she was backlit. Or maybe backside lit. Bizarre comes to mind, but doesn’t exactly capture it.
One thing we’re picking up on is the reality that the old parts of town don’t necessarily offer the finest dining, and hotel staff don’t even know the extent of the options in their neighborhoods. We got two recommendations for dinner, but ended up walking until we stumbled across a Mexican restaurant that hadn’t been recommended but should have been. We were the only ones in there enjoying excellent fare, which we polished off with cups of ice cream from a tiny little walkup we discovered on our way home.
We walked home faster and faster as it started to rain, then sat on an outside patio to enjoy the last of our ice cream until the wind whipped the rain sideways, blew the door open, and send us flying to our room.
It was a hard day. The ups and down were, in the end, taxing. The grades for freight trains were typically less than 2%, even though Nora would swear they were 22.5% because a circle is 360 degrees and half of that is 180 and half of that is 90 and half of that is 45 and half of that is 22.5. I’m not sure why the halving ended there, but it did, and she was certain that’s what we were climbing. Sometimes the logic is unassailable.
So at 5:30, fed and showered and fully Alleved, we got ready for bed. Tomorrow will be our longest day, with rain forecasted, and our quads are already sore.