Riding the Katy Trail

Cabooses often mark one of the 31 trailheads

 We’ve been fans of rails to trails for several years. They are basically abandoned railroad lines converted into walking and bicycle paths, made possible by the National Trails System Act of 1983. It preserves abandoned rail corridors through "railbanking," until funds can be raised to develop them into public paths. 

We’ve ridden quite a few of them, Our favorite is the Hiawatha Trail from the Montana border down to Wallace ID through numerous tunnels and over several trestles.  But the most famous one of all is the Katy Trail, over 240 miles long across much of central Missouri. It’s in the Rails-to-Trails Hall of Fame (organized by the wonderful Trail Link app), and rightfully so.  When planning our biennial cross-country road to the Berkshires of MA to see daughters Skyler and Feruza, we decided to try a couple segments of it.

Unlike many of our other adventures,
it was impossible  to get lost on the Katy Trail

Telegraph post from 1870

Nicknamed the Katy,  the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT) began in the 1870s, and ran through much of the Missouri River valley by the 1890s. It provided a vital link between the agriculture of central Missouri and the quickly developing American southwest. The last train ran in 1986.  

Through a lot of lobbying, fundraising, and persistence, the trail was finally converted to public use in 1999 and made into a very linear state park, 240 miles long by about 100 feet wide. Many of its 31 trailheads have cabooses from the MKT trains that plied the route as well as fascinating historical signs and a surviving depot buildings. We spotted some telegraph posts from 1870 along the trail, and marveled at the backbreaking work in the heat and humidity to elevate the grade above the wetlands.

A well-appointed trailhead at Clinton

The first day we rode about 38 miles in high humidity and 90 degree temperatures. The dust from the crushed limestone rail bed  coated the spouts to our water bottles and gummed up our gears.  But the novelty of it all made it fun until the return trip after a heavy lunch in Clinton, MO. We’re out of shape and our butts got sore.  Glad we decided not to ride the entire route, like some people do!

 

Along the path from Windsor to Clinton

One of the more boring and hot parts
of the Windsor to Clinton segment

Our second forays were based out of New Franklin, next to Boonville, founded by Daniel Boone's sons. 

Booneville:  The old RR bridge is in the background

We caught a beautiful sunset over the Missouri River the first night. For the third leg we drove to Rocheport, and cycled 17 miles along cliffs, the Missouri River and some Lewis and Clark campsites.  It was much cooler that day, shaded half the way by a dense deciduous canopy. We had limestone cliffs on one side and the mighty Missouri on the other.

Lewis & Clark campsite

Missouri River

Refreshing shade

Limestone cliffs part of the way

 

Mark Twain's childhood home

With our early start and quick finish we decided to break camp and head north to Hannibal, birthplace of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.  Very interesting, but we don’t know how people got along back in the day without air conditioning.  Life when he was a kid was tough, but not as tough as it was for the slaves that worked for his family in his very early childhood. 

Well worth the read!

We've been listening to a fascinating audio book called These Truths--History of the United States by Harvard history professor Jill Lepore. She explores the origins of our divided nation and traces much of it to racism and all the compromises about slavery necessary to form this nation.  We highly recommend a print version, as she is a wonderful writer, but not a good narrator.

Update

And as an update from to the last post about the Eisenhower museum a few days ago, we toured the Harry S. Truman museum the next day. We found them both similar and yet different. Both pointed themselves in a good light and offered good perspectives from the standpoint of the First Ladies. Ike's seemed to have more emphasis on his pre-presidential days listing every posting he had since WWI.  Harry's had more focus on all the crises he and the US had ending the war and dealing with the new nuclear age, Korea, and the emerging civil rights movement.  

"Give 'em Hell" Harry

The Truman Museum and Library

As an interesting coincidence, Harry roomed with Ike's brother in college. Also, Ike's first choice was to attend the Navel Academy, but he was too old, so he went to West Point instead.  History would have been a lot different if Ike had joined the Navy!

Sunset on the Missouri from an abandoned 
RR bridge

          

At one of the trailheads

 "What We Can, While We Can; What We Could, While We Could"