If you hear the wake-up strips, hit the ditch

Day 3

Mexico, Missouri to Moberly, Missouri

53 miles

We had a very nice stay at the bed and breakfast.  The hot tub really helped our aching knees.  Our host and hostess made us feel right at home.  We started out this morning with a delicious breakfast and lots of nice conversation.  We began our ride later than normal but that was ok because it was 45 degrees when we got up.  For those of you that know me really well, you know that I don’t like riding when it is below 60 degrees. 

When we left Mexico, we were on a highway with a nice shoulder but after about 5 miles, the shoulder turned to gravel.  We decided to alter our route again to avoid the no shoulder problem.  So instead of a 40 mile day it ended up being a 50 mile day.  I am amazed at how many roads we are encountering that have no shoulder or are gravel.  Susan has done a great job of driving ahead of us and reporting back the road conditions.  If we didn’t have her along we would be doing a lot of back tracking.   

We ate lunch in Sturgeon, Missouri today at the Buzz Café.  Sturgeon was the first town outside of the St Louis area that was mentioned in the manuscript.  Small town with little going on but our lunch was fantastic.  After lunch Tom decided that he would continue to ride even though we had already ridden 30 miles.  Susan decided to go antiquing.  We decided we didn’t need her to scout ahead because we were on highway 63 going straight into Moberly.  We had a nice shoulder to ride on but there was lots of traffic.  Our mantra of the day was “If you hear the wake-up strips, hit the ditch”.  Luckily we never had to go into the ditch. 

This evening we decided that we needed to buy two new tires for the tandem.  Our front tire was showing signs of sidewall failure.  The nearest bike store was in Columbia, Missouri.  While in Columbia we ate supper at Hu Hot Mongolian Bar-B-Q, did laundry at a Laundromat, and had Starbucks coffee.  We are really roughing it.