6/24/2022 0 Comments Part 2: MissouriBefore I recount Missouri post-Katy Trail, there's one story that's too good to pass up & can be used as a reference for a later encounter. My last night camping on the Katy Trail, the same evening Brontë and I watched the sunset. Around 2am I woke up to a sound only belonging to a raccoon rummaging through empty beer cans and a full garbage bag that was left outside by the site across from me. A few minutes later as I am trying to fall back asleep, I hear sniffing around the vestibule with my shoes. Me, knowing it's just a raccoon, I turn on my flashlight and tell it to go away (it does). Half hour it's back and sniffing, but on the other vestibule with my flat-rate package of food from Michigan (I know food isn't supposed to be so close to my tent but ... you probably would have done the same thing if you were out there). Again, I turn on my flashlight and tell him to go bother someone else. This raccoon decides to be bold and I see a singular paw reach under my vestibule and touch my box of food. I shake my tent, the raccoon is gone but the paw print remains. They didn't bother the campground for the rest of the night. I said goodbye to the Katy Trail in Sedalia and headed for the Missouri State Fairgrounds Campground. This campground was indeed a fairgrounds campground. Much better than the one I stayed at in Hartford, Kentucky. The electrical box didn't catch on fire! The bar is set so low. Surprisingly, I still felt alive after my longest ride of the trip so far - 70 miles. A shower, campground wide wifi, and $12 overnight fee helped. As I head west, the nicer people are. I was invited by the site next to me & fellow tent campers to a cold Gatorade. Regina and Bryan were refreshingly outdoorsy and beyond nice to talk to. Thanks for the Gatorade!! Missouri State Parks were gold star worthy starting with the Katy Trail State Park. Annie and Abel Van Meter State Park was no different. The park was so green and beautiful. Mac n cheese for dinner. Sorta cleaned my Mac n cheese cooking pot. Placed as much food as possible in my bear canister. Moved bear canister and Mac n cheese cooking pot outside of my site and farther away from my tent. I wake up at 1am to an animal walking through my site. You might be saying, Eryn, you can sleep through anything - thunderstorms, parties, people falling off bunk beds - but you woke up to ... sounds of an animal walking through grass?? That is correct. Your guess is as good as mine. ANYWAYS: I knew instantly this visitor wasn't a raccoon. My gut feeling said that it was a bear. I heard this animal walk and I swear I heard snorting and grunting. I forced myself to remain calm. Because like printers, bears can probably smell fear. I plugged my ears because if I can't hear it, there's nothing scary out there. Grass being pushed into the topsoil. The ting of my Mac n cheese cooking pot moving against rocks. The thud of my bear canister moving on soft earth. The very sudden realization of the food in every pannier and in my tent next to me. I am a soft taco with salsa. I heard the animal visit the RVer's site next to me - knocking a garbage bag off the bear hook. They were a crunchy taco. I found my headphones in the dark and put country music on Spotify with a 15 minute sleep timer and I was out before Maren Morris could finish singing; asleep until I woke up at 6am and excited to see the damage done. I was as excited as a kid on their birthday. I gingerly walked around my site scouring the ground for paw prints. The Mac n cheese cooking pot was unharmed. The bear canister was muddy, toppled, and moved 20ft. I couldn't find any paw prints, but there were sort of large and spread out claw marks in the mud. Once again, with evidence, I ruled out raccoons and their lil hands. I made a beeline for the garbage bag-pulled off-bear-hook RVer when I saw they were cleaning up. "Mornin'," I say as the RVer walks over to me with an inquisitive look. "What do ya think got into your garbage last night?" "Raccoon." He says crossing his arms. "Are you ... sure? How could a raccoon get your garbage bag off the hook? I think it was a bear." "Nope it wasn't a bear. Oh raccoons can get big," bringing his hand up to mid-thigh like you might reference how tall a toddler is, "and when they stand on their hind legs, they can reach -" "Yeah, but I heard this thing walking and breathing, I say cutting him off "I was visited by raccoons the other night and this was a totally different sound." "Look, I'm from here and there's no bears here. They're all further north. If they ventured this far south the DNR would be tracking them and ready to take them away." I didn't bother arguing because it wasn't worth it. I already had my evidence that it was a bear: claw marks, the fact that the garbage was off the bear hook, hearing walking, and grunts/huffing/snorting. I recounted my experience and interaction with the RVer to a few people. They all said the same thing: That guy kept saying it was a raccoon because he was scared that a bear had actually visited. That guy was a crunchy taco in his hard-sided teardrop camper. I was the one with soft walls who would have been in danger. Someone better call National Geographic to tell them that raccoons make new sounds. Pershing State Park was not nearly as exciting. It turns out I'm amazing at picking sites online, because I picked one in full sun and next to the highway. My tent was 20ft away from the two lane zoom zoom paved road that lead to the entrance of the park. A) poor campground planning, and B) poor site choice for me. Pershing was by no means full - especially in the primitive loop - I could have switched sites if I had asked the campground host. I rather chose to live with the consequences of my actions and unofficially occupied two sites. As in, all my stuff was on my registered site - but I journaled, talked on the phone, and cooked dinner in the shade of the site next to me. From Pershing State Park, it was essentially a straight shot to Cameron, Missouri. Huge but manageable hills that gave enough momentum to propel me up three quarters of the next hill. At a motel in Cameron, I took a rest day. Well-deserved after 366 miles of biking in 7 days from St. Louis. This rest day was actually a zero day. Zero miles and pretty close to zero steps. Only left my room to check out the complimentary breakfast and steal a bagel. I ate food while lounging on my bed while watching a muted HGTV and playing Xana Radio on Spotify. You know, questioned my whole ride and allowed myself to wallow and miss friends and home. From Cameron, it was a three day route to Lincoln, Nebraska with one final Missouri State Park campsite planned. Lincoln was my next big stop - staying with my cousin Kayla. My ride to Big Lake State Park held an important milestone that some wouldn't celebrate: my first flat tire. Picture this: Eryn blindly following google maps and strangers in gas stations saying the next road I'm taking is paved. Turning on to Co Rd T - it's paved. Then gravel. And back to pavement. The all too familiar feeling of metal grinding on pavement brings me to a stop and I'm grinning like a maniac. There's no use throwing a fit, this was bound to happen. Correlation isn't causation - my rear tire is wore down and threadbare at this point. Otherwise, my ride was going smoothly, my legs felt great, and it was still early in the day. You betcha I was giggling to myself as I unclipped everything, flipped over my bike, and got a handful of grease when removing my rear wheel. I learned how to change a bike tire days before my flight to Virginia. I channeled the memory from Michigan and even surprised myself with how fast the process went. As I was reaching for my bike pump, the farmer whose driveway I was next to pulls up in his Polaris. "So ... what are you doing? Are you okay?" "Oh yeah, I'm fine, my bike's not though. Got a flat and I'm just about to pump the tire." The farmer was astounded to say the least, that I already had the new tube on the rim and ready for air. Like a true person in rural America, he had been watching the cyclist stopped on the road from his house before checking on them. He offered to drive me and my tire to the air compressor in his barn, of which I agreed to. There were no stranger danger vibes from this man, only kindness. And another roadblock. My tires have presta valves rather than the more common Schrader valves. He had never seen the long presta valve before, ergo didn't have an adapter for the air compressor. I had been procrastinating buying a presta/Schrader adapter, and this sealed the deal, at the next opportunity I was going to buy one. In true farmer fashion, he jerry-rigged a similar yet different adapter with a large rubber band and managed to fill the tire to 60 psi. Godsend. Would have taken me at least a half hour to fill the tire with my tiny bike pump and it wouldn't have gotten anywhere near 60 psi. Instead, I had a full tire and a 45 minute turnaround time. From living in Michigan and close to the Great Lakes, we are spoiled with water sources. For the rest of the Untied States, I need to lower my expectations of rivers and lakes. Big Lake was ... big for the area. Murky. This state park was essentially empty as well, and I picked a site in the shade of a sycamore tree. The next morning: my sights set on Iowa.
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Author: Eryn corinthCyclist. Feminist. Outdoor enthusiast. Tree hugger. Archives
October 2022
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