Jefferson City to Sedalia

Today was supposedly 88 miles, and our final day on the Katy Trail. We left the capital and made our way across a pretty sick pedestrian bridge to start out our day. After crossing the bridge we went down a cool ramp which circled several times allowing us to shout across at teammates who had left earlier and later than us. Finally on the road, I had my second fall of the trip while simply standing still and talking to someone at a stop sign. Only my pride was hurt, and is gained a large bump on my elbow. This wasn't my only fall of the day though. About 20 miles in, we noticed that part of our group had stopped and we hadn't waited. So we stopped on a bridge on the trail. A storm had passed the night before, and the wooden bridge was super slick. As soon as I clipped out and put my foot down, I completely ate it. Again, only pride. 

The great thing about the Katy Trail is that it has no cars and allows us to ride next to each other when no one else is passing/near - perfect for conversations. My group of six rode in a tight cluster, and played hot seat, where one person rides closer to the middle and we get to pepper them with questions. I ended up learning a lot about my teammates and it was fun to get to dive a bit below the surface with folks I hadn't interacted much with yet. 

The storm I mentioned earlier did more than make the bridge slippery. We later learned that this storm had knocked several trees down into the trail making it impossible to pass on bikes. More than 6 times we had to stop and pass our bikes over or walk our bikes around the debris.

After we finished our first lunch of the day, we rolled up on some chalk art on one of the bridges that had a poem and a portrait of our very own Mike Pope. Rumor is that Dan drew it, but no one has confessed. 'Twas a good pick me up when we knew we still had over 45 miles left. 

A little further up, we crossed our second river. Since Sunny was riding with us, we couldn't resist a selfie to document this awesome riding crew and the water. 

Got into the host fairly late and it started storming during dinner. Laundry crew were champs and did a full load f laundry even though they wouldn't be back until way past bed, and Jay was a champ for bringing them back on their own and finishing out laundry alone. 

Flood warnings abound in all the counties we ride through tomorrow. Lightning, thunder, and pouring rain made for a good night of deep sleeping. Hoping for good weather, though the radar shows this next ride as a wet one.