Washington to Jefferson City

 While many mistake the capital for MO as St. Louis, it's actually found in the town we rode to today - Jefferson City. Also, Missouri looks exactly how I have always expected non-St Louis Missouri to look:

We had a pretty amazing breakfast of coffee, smoothies, fruits, and animal shaped waffles this morning. 

After breakfast, I spent a solid hour fixing things and cleaning my bike. It still makes me extremely giddy when I figure out that I can do stuff with zero help to fix problems with my bike. Also, bike cleaning is surprisingly therapeutic. There were some pretty major random burrs just hangin out in my cassette that I got out, and now everything is as clean as a whistle. (Dan made fun of me for documenting this momentous occasion). 

After everybody headed out, I swung by a pretty rad bike shop just by the host to pick up some items I had been in need of /broke/lost throughout the trip. Another giddy moment- when I can hold full conversations with the folks at bike shops and actually know what we're talking about. While I used to feel like all I did was ride bikes and be ignorant about the bike itself, I'm kinda knowledgable now (but have a ton to learn). 

With grease covering my hands, I headed off to set up the first lunch spot. Found a shady pavilion, hung a hammock, and had time to spare so I bike a bit up the trail to chalk notes to oncoming riders about how far lunch was. My knee had been super stuff since I woke up and it was kind of surprising that riding felt better than resting today, so I randomly hopped on my bike whenever I was waiting for riders throughout the day. Oh, and at lunch, Blythe randomly decided she wanted to cut her hair...so she did. 

After first lunch, I realized my habit to forget filling gas in a car has carried into this summer as I found myself in the middle of nowhere with little gas. I barely made it to where I had promised to set up second lunch, dropped the trailer, and adventured to the only gas pump (note: not a station, but a pump) anywhere near our route. I returned to our lunch site, where the heat had once again gotten to my head, and dunked my head under a water spicket several times while riders came in and out to finish up the day. Twas a hot one and a long one, and tomorrow will only get longer. Jazzed to be riding full days again.