Cycling Across America #43
Northeast Missouri
Part 43 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)
After the previous not very effective day at putting distance between me and my halfway rest of Kansas City, I am still heading north. In Missouri.
I wrote these words at 10:30pm on September 25th 1996, a Wednesday. In Maryville, Missouri.
Surrounded by large green blotches on radar images of the central States, I’m wondering what happened to all that sunshine. Some of the blotches are a darker shade of green and worse - some of them have little yellow and orange cells in them.
Can’t complain really. I was the one that cherished the idea of being out there competing with the elements. Well I’m not complaining but I think the elements are winning.
After yesterday’s series of mini-disasters I was looking forward to moving on. Ah well.
Woke up after 10 with no time to fix those punctured tubes, as check out was 11. Then I saw my back tyre was flat. Knew I should’ve checked it for thorns. Decided it was a slow and pumped it up. Went outside and saw the heavy rain.
Bagged up everything including myself and rolled across the Truck Park back onto Highway 371. What little traffic there was I left a mile later as I used Highway A into St. Joseph. This is the only state I’ve come across that uses letters to identify its roads. As far as I can tell the specific names are unique to counties only, and I’m particularly fond of the two-letter codes e.g. BB, MM, CC. You pronounce them “double B” (double-M), (double-C).
The rain was mostly heavy and cold but it didn’t seem to bother me too much. Until I was in St Joe 12 miles later. I was now very wet, very cold, very hungry, and avoiding traffic with little help from my rain-covered mirror. As I turned in to a Burger King two women smiled at me, not in the Hello sense, rather in the look-at-you, you’re-all-wet sense. After shivering through a King size Whopper meal I left a pool of water on my seat.
[I’ll put the rest of this entry below the fold]
I needed a bike shop. No spare unpunctured tyres and sitting on a slow. Looking for a gas station so I could go in and ask them for a look at their phone book I was debating whether I should refer to it as a “golden” pages or a “yellow” pages. Then I saw the Tourist Information centre.
It was an old Union Pacific train painted yellow. Or was it gold ? Up the steps and in I was the only one there. Two bike shops in town they directed me to the nearest one. And they told me of the lodging available in Maryville, today’s destination. There was three in the book and I could see that the Super 8 was the cheapest. They also had information for me on lodging available in both Clarinda and Shenandoah in Iowa.
In return for all this very useful information all I had to do was sign the visitors book, explain briefly about myself and my trip, and then spend half an hour answering questions on life in Ireland including Aids programmes, the popularity of the Pope, gay rights movements, and the perception of the Irish people of American politics.
And the reason why the Catholics were fighting the Protestants.
As I left I picked up a leaflet on Jesse James - he was killed around there after all, and another leaflet on O’Malley’s pub in Weston where I went a year ago.
After getting the tubes I then spent ages in the bike shop talking with the bloke who seemed much the same age as myself, maybe a bit younger, mostly about overshoes to combat the rain and snow, and eventually about my specific trip. He gave off this air of respect without resorting to the “we’re so proud of you” line others use.
And I bought the shoes. Another fifty dollars on the card. Another day over-budget. I don’t mind wet feet and this morning they were like sponges but I’m thinking ahead. What if it’s cold as well as wet ? So warm days ahead for my feet, especially when I get back to Dublin.
Almost 2 o’clock when I’m leaving and Tony follows me out to introduce himself. I was glad he did. He had once toured from Colorado to Illinois, about 600 miles, he said, but I was “a hell of a biker”. From the door of the shop he gave me his route to Maryville - out the back, through some streets with no traffic and then a couple of country highways. With the wind on my back it would help me up those couple of hills by Amazonia.
- Is there a wind on my back? I asked.With all the rain I’d never thought about the wind.
- Oh yes, he said - I’m the wind man, that’s what I do. I decide where we ride.
I then arrogantly asked was this wind I now noticed 8 mph. He very kindly said yes. We shook hands and I went out the back.Nice route through St Joe. Included a park which reminded me of home, and a second park, as nice, but only because I didn’t follow directions. And then Highway K. The rain has stopped falling, perhaps because it was tired of doing so but it was still up there, taking a breather. Skidded on some gravel and worried sometimes about leaves but the miles to Amazonia were largely non-incidental.
The hills weren’t much as Tony had correctly indicated but they helped warm me up again, and I dried out a little bit. With a population of 200 plus it did have a shop but decided I’d wait ’til Filmore. Crossed Interstate 29 and Highway K changed into Highway CC. Then three miles west on US 59 before heading north on Highway H.
Tony had been right about the winds and the hills and I suspected he’d arranged for no traffic on the roads I was using. With the rain spitting down I went into a gas station (Conoco) 3 miles before Filmore - just in case it was my last chance before Maryville - still 3 hours away.
I picked up a couple of bananas and a load of stodgy rubbish for $2.50 in this store. 2 old people sat at a table draped in a red check table cloth in the middle of the shop. The men who came to the shop wore bright check shirts, and white and blue denim overalls, with hats. Hick country, Tony had said.
Ate half the stodge outside as the rain quickened. The Mountain Dew hurt my sore throat but I was thirsty. Wouldn’t buy the lozenges on sale because the packet was too big.
Filmore was a pretty little town with a shop and a pub at least, but I needed to keep going. The road was a constant up and down affair which slowed me down so I was in real danger hitting night before Maryville.
It was now raining very heavy. All cars had their lights on. I kept telling myself not to worry - just keep turning the wheels and I will have a bed tonight. I will have a bath.
Even if I don’t make it before nightfall at least there was no traffic around so I felt somewhat safe - just very tired and drained.
In truth Highway H was gorgeous despite the rain. Weathered barns and Silos. Crops a million different shades of yellow and brown with the occasional splash of green. The roadsides were covered in Native Grasses and wildflowers surprisingly beautiful in very heavy rain. White and purple and yellow flowers, so many different grasses so rich in colour and texture, all holding rain droplets.
The rain was heavy, pelting off my face, dropping from my eyebrows, running off my helmet, down my legs, and my feet were squelching again. It stayed like that for 30 minutes. At regular intervals long rolling booms of thunder went all around me but there was no lightning so I carried on.
Spoke to a few horses, dismissed a few dogs - one of which was huge, his breath warming my wet leg. Startled an enormous pig but not a day for animals really. Did see a couple of buzzards eating a dead racoon though, and a red-tailed hawk flying low. Often in the corn something big would move.
Didn’t do much singing today, throat much too sore, so I was thinking of home instead. Trying to write letters in my head to friends, and to the folks. The others can make do with postcards on top of the e-mails. I imagined going back to KC after I finish whatever this trip has become.
It’s been thunder and lightning all night. Dashed from the Super 8 across to the restaurant for some nice pasta and a salad.
Rang the double ring home so the family know that I’m safe even if they don’t know where I am.
Spoke with my contact in Omaha to say I wouldn’t be there for 2 days yet due to the weather. That leaves me with 2 easy mileage days but if there’s lightning out there then I’m in trouble.
Read the Next Entry in My Bicycle Trip Across America
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