Each of the three days of riding, grouped together here, have been amazing. Eminence to Lesterville was filled with big rollers and, according to one YouTuber, had the hardest stretch of riding - Eminence to Ellerville. It was challenging, and the beauty of the Ozarks was everywhere!
In Lesterville, we stayed in The Wilderness Lodge, which was a tremendous change from many of the highway interchange hotels and motels we end up staying in often on this leg of the trip. There has not been much in between those highway ramps.
But in Lesterville, we lucked out. The trees surrounded our 4-unit log cabin accommodations and there was a beautiful (low) river we could walk to and sit in on our rest day. Some of our group opted to float on the river, but I passed on that having done many similar trips on the Battenkill with water levels that low. They all loved it, and I and my companions were very happy sitting in camp chairs talking in the shade, feet ecstatic to be wiggling in the cool water and round river stones.
He waved goodbye as we left Eminence.
Oppy’s used to have a wall of TransAm cyclists who had come through, but it seems so few come now that the wall space has been reallocated.
Reynolds County Courthouse
We have arrived!
Inside the cabin
Some of the grounds at the Wilderness Lodge
Happy feet!
We said goodbye to Lesterville yesterday and headed for the big city of Farmington, MO. The first half of the shortish ride was beautiful in all the ways we have come to expect from the Ozarks: particularly luscious woods and rolling hills. And we had a special treat at the halfway point when we stopped at the Elephant Rocks State Park. There was a loop through the rocks that had descriptions in both print and braille, with green carpet squares used to help ensure that people with impaired sight could navigate the trail.
Elephants from the rear?
To me this looked more like a hippo’s open mouth than anything related to elephants.
Giant turtles? For us this was a pretty visual display for a braille trail.
After we left Elephant Rock the riding got a bit scary. We have had ongoing challenges with the rumble strips in MO. They are all over the place and seem to have been placed solely for cars wothout a moment's thought to cyclists trying to stay out of said cars’ and trucks’ way on the road. The choice for much of a pretty heavily trafficed section was to try and stay to the right of the rumble strip, despite some areas that were very tight and others that had dramatic dropoffs to our right, or to stay on the left of the rumble strip and hope that the drivers gave us space (not required by law in MO). I ended up going back and forth, which meant many times over the rumble itself, something that also did not feel too safe and was very jarring. I found the last 20 miles a stressful ride and I was very happy to make it to Farmington in one piece! No pictures were taken because there was less to see and it meant stopping, when alI I wanted to do was get to the hotel.
Today was another completely amazing ride. No more Ozarks, but beautiful rolling hills and country roads nonetheless. And… we rode our bikes over the Mississippi River, which was more thrilling than I expected it to be! Tonight we spend our first night in Illinois, where cars do have to give us some room on the road and there may be more masks in use!
Hard to tell, but this is taken at one of those famous Missouri vineyards.
Gravel quarry
Approaching the bridge across the Mississippi.
Bridge is under construction, so we lined up for our turn to cross.
Success!
Chester, where we are spending the night, is home to Popeye! Who knew?
Yup! Popeye… 💪🏼