Barry's Excellent Katy Trail Adventure (Day 2) - Boonville to Jefferson City, MO

                                                                                      Map source = BikeKatyTrail.com

Note:  In this post, Barry's words are in italics, Emily's are in normal text.

On Tuesday morning, we awoke to a nice hot breakfast at the Comfort Inn in Boonville.  A hot breakfast is a rarity in the budget to mid-range hotels we stay in, so this was a plus before a long day of cycling for Barry.  The new biking buddies he had met the day before were also staying in our hotel, as it turned out, and would be staying in the same Baymont Inn in Jefferson City tonight as well!  Turns out there were five men in total in the group (two had been riding a bit behind the first three the previous day due to flat tires and other mechanical issues).  Plus they had George, who was driving the support car along from place to place, like I did.  They were all super friendly and fun to talk to, and Barry would see them along the trail off and on for the next two days.

Today's ride was one of the shorter ones of his tour (relatively speaking!), which was kind of nice as it was a bit chilly in the morning, and Barry was able to wait to leave until it warmed up enough for shorts and short sleeves.  Here he is taking off from the hotel to make his way back to the Katy Trail.  

Boonville trailhead and railroad depot

Today the trail hugged the Missouri River for most of the day. That meant a mostly flat ride, but a steady headwind made it seem like it was uphill the whole way. 

The mighty Missouri River

The "support crew" moved on as well...

Paisley and I had time to kill after checking out of the Comfort Inn at the last possible minute, so after making the drive to Jefferson City and determining that it was too early to check into the Baymont, we made our way to a park close by I'd found on google maps. 

The Jefferson City multi-use greenway went right through the park, so we were able to take a walk and we catch a glimpse of the Missouri state capital dome.  Yes, Jefferson City is the capital of Missouri.  Don't feel bad if you didn't know this; until we planned this trip, I didn't either!

Missouri state capital building

By the time I was able to check into the hotel (2 pm), Barry was arriving in Jefferson City and had to negotiate his way on a spur trail and over the Missouri River bridge to downtown.  

Barry's arrival in Jefferson City

Including riding to/from the trail to our lodging I ended up with a little over 56 miles today. I wasn't sure what to expect when I left the trail to ride into the capital of Missouri, but a nice new bike/pedestrian bridge over the Missouri River made it easy, and traffic was much lighter than expected downtown as I rode to our hotel. Check out these photos from the bridge - the ramp up to the bridge was amazing!

Nice bike path up to pedestrian bridge

Barry got to ride up this cool series of ramps to the bridge

Ped/bike ramps

Awesome ped/bike bridge extension -- it used to be impossible to cross other than in a motor vehicle.

View from the bridge -- state capital on right

Missouri State Capital building -- and yes, downtown Jefferson City is very hilly!

Downtown Jefferson City

After Barry arrived safely at the hotel and took a shower, we set off on foot to get some food and check out the downtown a bit.  It was a very quaint and historic downtown area.  We didn't realize our hotel would be so close to downtown, but we got lucky this time.  Since we had to book pet-friendly lodging, we were very limited in our choices, so this was an unexpected bonus. 

Lewis and Clark trailhead memorial

Front view of the capital building

That's me up there by Thomas Jefferson!

We also got to see the Jefferson Landing state historic site, which was all closed up for the season, but it was nice to see the buildings from the outside.  The current Amtrak station is still in one of the buildings here.

Amtrak station is in ground floor of this historic hotel building

After checking out some of the sights, we bought a takeout pizza at the well-known Arris Pizza and hustled back to our room to chow down.  We were so hungry we forgot to take a photo, but we got the "Homer", with spinach, artichoke hearts, roma tomatoes, feta, and pizza cheese.  Could have used more spinach, but it was delicious otherwise.

Stay tuned for Day 3 -- Jefferson City to Washington!