Jeff’s Missouri Bicycle Trip Report - 05/24/09
Day 7 - Morning
Sunday, May 24th, 2009 - Destination: Clinton. 
Up at
5:45 a.m. Here’s a picture of campsites #9 and #8 (where I ate supper last
night). 
Fortunately, the
tent was dry, and so was the ground cloth. I decided to wait on breakfast until
I found a place along the trail. I’d now figured out how far I’d gone since
Monday and stopped by site #8 at 7:45a.m. to tell them as I left. Saw these on
the way to Boonville. 
I was at the bridge
over the Missouri River at 8:06 a.m. From there you can see the no longer used
bridge that used to carry Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway (Katy) trains. 
The bike lane on the bridge was narrow and fenced-off from the
traffic, so I stopped several times to let bicyclists going the other way pass.
At the bottom of the bridge was downtown Boonville. I saw a restaurant a
block off the trail, but bicyclists were swarming outside, so figured it’d be a
wait. Kept on going on downtown streets (the trail path through town) to the
depot. 
Before I knew it, I was out of town. 
Got to Pilot Grove
at 10:01 a.m. The only restaurant I saw was closed. So I purchased snacks at the
Casey’s (orange juice, Gatorade, Pop Tarts, peanut butter crackers, and energy
bars), and headed for Lions Park in town. 
I didn’t eat all
that for breakfast, but half of it anyway. I was done at 10:45 a.m. It was a
pretty quiet morning on the trail. At one point, however, I was somewhat
surprised when I turned my head to the right to see what appeared to be an Amish
teenaged boy in Sunday clothes off the edge of the trail. He was holding his
finger to his lips in a “be quiet” gesture. He popped out onto the trail after I
passed. Here’s a different tunnel than the one I passed through
yesterday. 
One of the few remaining signal posts on the trail. 
The Lamine River. 
At 12:40 p.m. I
stopped at the trailhead in Clifton City for a break. Shortly thereafter, a
bicyclist showed up who was quite interested in my bike. He noticed the
direction arrows I’d drawn on my rims, and showed me the ones he had on his. We
talked a long while about older bikes, and bike baskets. His name is Al Neyhaut.
He lives in Clifton City, and repairs old bikes. He took a picture of me with my
bike and let me take one of him. 
At 1:30 p.m. I
proceeded on to Sedalia, arriving at the city limits at 3:04 p.m. The trail leaves
the tracks and follows streets through part of the city. I didn’t realize that
the tracks are actually still under the trail! 
At 3:15 p.m., I
arrived at the depot, which is now a museum. But it’s closed on Sundays. 
I talked briefly with some cyclists who had also met Al in
Clifton City. 
I kept an eye open
for a place to have lunch in Sedalia. My PN-20 indicated places to eat not too
far up a highway that the trail intersected with on the west side of town.
However, when I arrived at the intersection, the trail went over on a bridge
with no easy access to the highway below. Before long, I was out of town, so
decided to eat some more Pop Tarts and other snacks I had with me. While eating
I called Jim to give him an update on my progress.
Previous Installment Next Installment
| 
