Day 26: To Journal or To Blog…

Hermann, MO to Columbia, MO — 79.2 mi, 2218ft

After quite a hectic day yesterday escaping the thunderstorm, I woke up late and in the comfort of my own bed, thanks to our Airbnb with an 11-person capacity. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the best sleep due to my persistent elbow issue, which flared up periodically during the night with a force strong enough to wake me up. Although there were moments of normalcy between the flare-ups, I decided to take this entire day off after SAGing out yesterday ( 😦 ) to let it recover, which ended up being the best decision since it has been better ever since! 

Adding to the team of injured/unwell, Nunu decided overnight to also pass on this biking day as she was dealing with a myriad of issues related to chafing that she wanted to get checked out at an urgent care. Thus, the car crew grew to 3 (Tatiana was driving today), and we had to open an extra seat and take on the challenge of fitting 3 bikes on our mediocre bike hitch (she’s doing her best but her best isn’t great…).

Figuring out the logistics of who’s biking and who’s not resulted in a bit of a slower morning, one of those where the time slips away and you’re not quite sure where it went. Nate left early to get to Columbia ASAP, since he was meeting a friend from pistol (a team he is on at MIT) in the city. The rest of the biking crew (Drew, Aarushi, and Carmen) rolled out quite a while after at around 9 am, in line with the past couple of days. Before leaving, we also met a frog hanging out by our car that took a liking to Drew. 

Now it was time for the car crew to leave. This turned out to be harder than usual. While I gathered items in the garage, I watched Tatiana attempt to move the car forward in the gravel driveway. Instead of the normal forward-backward movement of a car, the car instead bounced vertically on the suspension several times as I heard the wheels spinning. My first thought was “oh no we’re out of gas,” but we figured out that it was just stuck in the combination of wet dirt and gravel. Tatiana and I heroically pushed the car while Nunu stepped on the gas, finally freeing the car and hitting the road. 

Our first stop, in typical fashion, was a local coffee shop 😋. It’s a (nearly) universal driver day tradition, although it has recently spread into biking days as well — which I’m not complaining about. We found Stomp’n Grounds Espresso Bar in the nearby town of Hermann, and stopped by while Tatiana got ice. My honey lavender latte was delicious, for anyone who cares 😌.

We met up with Nate at the first rest stop, where I was also dropped off with all of the snacks + water. The plan was for Tatiana to drive to Jefferson City (around rest stop #2) and drop Nunu off at urgent care and come back for me at rest stop #1. In the meantime, I would sit with the supplies so everyone could get supplies as needed. I had flashbacks to day 10, when a similar situation occurred and I was left alone with everything for several hours as Tatiana drove people around. This time, I was just hoping not to get rained on — funny how history repeats itself!

To kill time, I scrolled for a bit (miraculously there was service) and put on some old episodes of Taskmaster (one of my favorite shows) while I attempted to catch up on my food journal. For those who don’t know already, I am a HUGE journaler, if that’s a word. I have been for years, and I have a ¹ traveler’s notebook that I bring around everywhere in addition to other journals. I wrote my “what do you do for fun” MIT essay about journaling. While I’m here, let me shamelessly give you a quick journal tour. 

This is my traveler’s notebook, in which I have 3 main inserts:

1. Junk Journal: This is where I put physical mementos, such as polaroids or receipts from special days. It’s also become a sketchbook as I’ve become lazier about bringing a sketchbook around as well.
2. Reflections: This is where I’ll actually write about certain days, or reflect on a topic.
3. Food: This is the newest section I’ve added. Normally I added this with the 1st insert, but I wanted to have something more separate to look back on and remember my opinions since I started eating out so much more during college in Boston. The idea is I’ll be able to find and keep my favorites, and also remember all of the social gatherings that are tied with food. 

I’ve mostly given up on extensively documenting this trip through my typical reflections and spreads due to this trip’s time-consuming nature, which is why I am extremely grateful for the existence of this blog. Without it, I would feel extremely sad about losing so many memories, but many have been preserved here through everybody’s collective effort. However, one that I am trying to update is my food journal, which I spent my time waiting on. Here are some my unsolicited opinions of some Spokes (in pencil) + Boston eats:

Okay, returning to what you actually come here for: a blog.

While journaling, I kept checking to see when the rest of the bikers were coming as they were taking longer than what I initially thought. Tatiana actually returned before they arrived, so she promptly took a nap in the car while we waited and I sought refuge from the mosquitoes. As someone who is extremely attractive to mosquitoes for whatever reason, I was not trying to add to my 10+ bite count. 

Several minutes into our relaxation, we get a phone call from the missing bikers, which is rarely good news as a driver. Lo and behold, Drew’s tire has popped! They need our rescue, so Tatiana and I repack our supplies and drive a couple miles to check out the situation. Tatiana bemoaned on the way there how all of her driver days devolved into some form of chaos, joking that she should never drive again. I’m not going to say anything, but there is an observable pattern…

Drew, Carmen, and Aarushi were extremely proactive in solving the problem and had everything mostly planned and figured out by the time we got there. The tire had actually popped a couple of miles back, but they worked some sealant magic initially to last it a while longer. However, due to the slash in the rubber, it didn’t hold for long. Drew had to jog his bike to this trailhead where we could meet them. The solution was to take the wheel of an unused bike, switch it out with Drew’s, and then drive the wheel to a bike shop to get it fixed. They had found a bike shop in our next city that had the exact tire we needed. Thus, with my bike being the outermost bike on the rack, it was sacrificed and stripped for its parts. A surgery commenced.

The surgery was successful, and the crew was ready to hit the Katy trail again in the pouring rain. However, before leaving, the dire state of the snack box was communicated. It had been stripped down to everything that was unwanted, and a restock was much needed. We reassured them that we were on it 🫡.

We left and drove to the 2nd rest stop, where Nate had been camping out for a while to avoid lightning. Now that the coast was clear, he was ready to get moving again. In an offhand comment about his plans with his friend once in Columbia, he accidentally revealed that he was going to a rock concert — and I knew it was over for the team. We have some serious concert-lovers. Tatiana immediately told everyone and got everyone excited at the prospect of also going. When in Columbia, MO I guess?

We then picked up Nunu from her urgent care appointment, which seemed to be helpful! Then we went to Walmart, where we had one of the arguably best hauls so far on this trip. Shoutout Tatiana for getting us a $50 discount!

By now, the 2nd group had arrived at rest stop #2 for lunch. With our new assortment of snacks and sandwich toppings, we created some sandwiches for kings. It was very deserved for the bikers, as they were covered in mud from the trail and rain. Aarushi and Carmen were relatively clean since their rain jackets (including my jacket loaned to Carmen) took the brunt of the splatter. However, Drew was another story:

Now we had to rush to the bike shop before it closed and drop off our wheel for a new tire. We made it a bit late, and arranged for it to be picked up by Drew the next day, as it was (conveniently) his driver day.  

We finally arrived at Vince’s (our WS host for the night) and rejoined Nate. I’ve decided at this point not to go to the rock concert as I wanted to relax and continue recovering, and since the logistics of going seemed pretty complicated (it was an underground/local concert that involved knowing someone and meeting up at a Target). Aarushi and Carmen wanted to join as well but unfortunately couldn’t make it in time due to the long ride, so I also waited for them at Vince’s. The others who were going got ready and left. While waiting for the bikers to arrive, I chatted with Vince about his many travels and watched Cape Verde qualify for the knockout stage of the world cup! As a big soccer fan, watching the world cup has been a fun thing to keep up with, and Cape Verde’s run so far has been a fairytale. 

At 9 pm the bikers finally arrived, admitting to taking longer to stop and admire the sunset. We reheated Vince’s lasagna and enjoyed a tub of local ice cream that another cross-country cyclist claimed to be the best he had across his trip, according to Vince. I can confirm, it was quite delicious.

The rest of us at the house thought about driving around Columbia for a Wendy’s stop or for funsies, but decided not to since we were all a bit tired and couldn’t decide on a concrete destination. Episode 2 of Arrested Development it is. We watched the pilot way back in Virginia, and at this rate we might get 5 episodes by SF! The concertgoers returned towards the end of the episode, at which point I decided to finally tuck in for the night and get as much sleep as I could. I caught up the next day about what they did, which included trying pistol, talking with the interesting characters, and being thrown around in a moshpit. All in all, a very packed night.

Thanks for sticking along with my journal ramblings, and hopefully the next time I blog, I’ll be on the road again!

See you soon,

Caroline

¹ A traveler’s notebook is a highly customizable and modular journal system. It typically consists of a leather cover (or of a similar material) that holds multiple separate paper booklets called “inserts” that are held together by elastic bands (or, if you’re me who’s lost the elastics, held together by sheer willpower).