Kansas!

Missouri was state number four for us, and the third state that I had never been to before. It was a good one.

We left the TransAm route and headed up to Belleville, Illinois for a night. Took the train into St. Louis and climbed around on the giant ridiculous jungle gym that is the City Museum. Had a great evening in Belleville, finally getting some good beer and, of coure, french fries for dinner. Erica's brother Jake picked us and the bikes up and drove us back across the river to Pacific, Mossouri, where we spent a couple days in the very lovely childhood home of Jake's wife Dani. There was swimming, and fireworks, and road trips to cool parts of St. Louis and to the very cool college town up in Columbia. It was delightful spending time with Jake and Dani, and after three days off of the bikes, we were ready to get moving again.

On the way back down to the main route, we rode through pretty much the worst rain I've ever been outside in. For real. It was miserable, so we cut the day short and got a motel room to help recover from the storm. Eventually, we made it back to the route and west across the beautiful Ozark mountains. They've got crystal clear spring-fed rivers here that you just wouldn't believe. We had several furry moments with friendly dogs and horses, and until the last couple days, the temperatures even stayed bearable.

Yesterday we had our first "big" day in a while... 83 pretty tough hilly miles to get us to Golden City, Mo, close to the end of Missouri and the end of the hills. Somebody tell Wally that we're in Pittsburg, Kansas! We're taking the rest of the day off to set ourselves up for several big days to get us through the likely very boring 500 miles before Colorado.

Sorry, no photos today. Can't upload in this library. I'll try again soon, ok?

-Stephen