Day 31 -- St. Joseph, MO to Chillicothe, MO

Miles: 90.05
Total Miles: 2253.54
Time: 5:40
Average Speed: 15.9 mph
Max Speed: 35.6 mph
Flats Today: 0
Total Flats: 13
Elevation Gain: 3509 ft
Weather: Low winds around 85 degrees and a little rain at the end
Today was another day of rolling hills except they were even steeper than before. We got into some Amish country today as well as some nice back roads. The county roads were all labeled with letters, so it was very easy to find our way. By the way, we figured out why Kansas had a bunch of winds from the south. According to the Kansas people, it's because Nebraska sucks and Oklahoma blows. Anyway, we woke up at 5:30, ate breakfast at 6:00, then loaded at 7:00 and headed out on our first full day in Missouri. We immediately got into some rolling hills that were quite steep, but it was fun. We were getting so bored of flat land that it was fun to have hills again... We probably won't be saying that very long. Anyway, we would go down a hill extremely fast in order to gain momentum to get up the next hill. Once we got to the top of that hill, we would go down the next hill and try to gain enough momentum to get up part of the uphill. We did that for 30 miles all the way to the first sag stop. We ate a bunch of cherries, ate some other food, filled our water bottles, then got back on the road. The next 30 miles to the second sag stop were very similar except we took a few more pictures.

We rode on some more rolling hills for some time before it started to level out a little bit. Along with the roads flattening out, the roads started having horse poop on them. That could only mean one thing... Amish. Not even a mile after we saw the horse poop, we spotted some Amish houses. The roads started getting rough in the middle and curved on the sides because of the horses' shoes roughening up the middle and the wagons making divots in the road. Fran was super excited because he had never seen almost any Amish before, so he had to stop and take a bunch of pictures. We eventually arrived at the second sag stop, but we didn't stay long because we new that there was an Amish bakery just up the road. Fran had never eaten Amish food, so we had to treat him to that deliciousness. He actually gave it the OK, which is rare for him... he said that he's only given the approval to about 4 restaurants on the entire trip. We're not near as picky... We've given the approval to every place that has enough to fill Wade up.

Anyway, after we left the lunch stop, we rode about a mile before we came upon a produce auction. The parking lot was filled with horse and buggies, so we took a picture. We went and talked to some people at the auction, and it was quite interesting. Just about a mile further than that, we came upon a great intersection in the road. It was the intersection of county road F and county road U. Wade said, "I call being in this picture." We joked about the sign for awhile as we road further along in our ride. We decided that if anyone asked us what we took a picture of today we would respond, "FU." The best part was that while we were taking a picture of the FU sign, Fran was taking a picture of some Amish horses... I guess that shows where our priorities are. Eventually we got on with the ride and got into some more rolling hills. At one point we came upon some long horns, so I told Wade to get next to them so I could take a picture. They kept running away from him, but we got a pretty good photo. We kept riding and when we were about 10 miles out from the hotel, I had to go pee, so I spotted a cool looking river and said, "Oh, cool, we should take a picture." I think Wade knew what I was up to, but we took a photo anyway. We road the last 10 miles into the hotel while it was sprinkling, then we checked into our room and went swimming in the rain. Wade went up to the room first, then he came back down with the key and said, "My key doesn't work." I stared at him and the key blankly, then told him that he was using the key from the last hotel. Now you know why I blame the stupid stuff that we do on him. Anyway, today was a fun day of riding some rolling hills, and tomorrow's the same thing except more of them and steeper climbs.