Onwards and Upwards...

On Monday the 29th of July we finally made our exit from Old St. Louie. We headed West out of town and onto the Katy Trail, America's longest "rails to trails" project, which crosses most of the state of Missouri. The trail was a nice reprieve from city biking, as its crushed limestone surface is car free and mostly flat. After a lunch stop in a town called Defiance we headed on down the trail to Augusta where we camped for the night at the Klondike park.

Unfortunately we were only on the trail for about 60 miles, and the next day we were back on the roads and heading North. We wound through some of the pretty Missourian countryside and ended up in Troy. The weather looked like it was closing in and the Troy Fire Department was nice enough to put us up for the night. We slept in the crew quarters and had free use of the facilities -- it was awesome. So big ups to the Troy fire department for the great night's sleep :)

The next day we road further North, this time taking highway 61 and enjoying the large shoulders as we blasted all the way to all the way to Hannibal MO. Hannibal is a interesting town famous for being Mark Twain's boyhood home, and throughout town you can see tributes to his various characters. As well as the Twain history there are many interesting old buildings and rail bridges which I am sure if given more time Mitts would have been all over. Looking for a place to spend the night we found ourselves at the Hannibal fire house where we were given a tour of the trucks by John and even allowed to attempt to pick up all of the different sizes of the jaws of life. The fireies were very helpful in assisting us to find a dry place to stay for the night, hooking us up with one of their connections in town who owns a campground. Top job guys, thanks again :)

In the morning we set off early and crossed our seventh state border in to Illinois, over the Mississipi river. We rode another 60-something miles north to Hamilton Illinois where we found a campground right next to the local swimming pool, which I'd say after a hot day on the bikes was just what the doctor ordered.

On Friday the 2nd of Aug we spent the first part of the morning on a beautiful little ride up the 96 about 13 miles from Hamilton where we stopped in at Nauvoo. Nauvoo was the first Mormon settlement and much of the old town has been rebuilt including the new temple. After an interesting lesson in Mormon history and a feed we hit the road. We crossed the Mississipi river again -- our 8th state border -- into Fort Madison, Iowa. We took the 61 as far as we could till the shoulders almost disappeared and the semis got so thick that we decided to head back onto the quieter roads and ended up in a little town called Oakville. We stopped off at the community center ask where we would be able to camp for the night, met a couple of colourful locals and were invited to stay the Mayor Benita's house  for the night. Thanks again Benita, we really appreciated your hospitality :)

This morning we hottailed it to Muscatine where we had our next map posted general delivery. After our jaunt to the post office we met up with our first warm showers host, Mark, and headed back to his place. He helped us clean the Katy Trail dust off our bikes and show us some other bicycle maintenance stuff. So we are all ready to get back on the road tomorrow with our clean bikes and our new map :)