Katy Trail mm 100-84 McKittrick to Treloar

A beautiful day, and a chance to celebrate the end of the semester, and the start of summer.  I took the opportunity to ride the KATY Trail from McKittrick to Treloar.  McKittrick is across the river from Herman, and in the neighborhood of where my mother’s family was raised.  If you follow the road north you get to Big Spring where my grandparents on my mother’s side are buried, turn there and head toward Mineola and you get to where my Mother was raised.  Her grandparents were from Herman.  It is interesting that when I go to Herman I am probably related to more people in that town than anywhere else that I go, and yet I do not know anyone.

If you go west from McKittrick you go by Loutre River, which my grandfather’s farm was near, though probably close to 15 miles further north.  I am going to go east instead.  There is an east breeze, but it has been several years since I rode this section of the trail, and this seemed a good day to repeat it.

 It is an interesting stretch, it has the river and the bluffs, but also the forests and farm land.  

In Memory of Emma

The view from the bench

 Lost Creek

Which showed the power of the rain that came this spring, scouring the sides of the creek and contributing to the muddy nature of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

A whole passel of wild dogs...well really not wild......there were at least six of them with varying degrees of bravery.  Some like this fella would have taken on anything including what ever I must have looked like to him.  If he jumped real high, he might have been able to bite my shoe at the bottom of the pedal stroke.  I was more worried about running over him, than being bit by him.  But he made valiant efforts to dissuade me from harm to his family, and must have been successful because I  did not harm them, and ran from his furious yapping down the trail.  Interesting on my return trip I got the chance to observe that he did not seem to be as worried by a couple of bikers that were in front of me, but one look at me brought him back out on the trail.  I wonder what it is about me that caused him so much concern.....

The spring must have had some relatively strong storms, but there were a number of trees that were from some earlier time.  The ones from this spring still had leaves and looked relatively fresh, the others were obviously several years old, the bark was starting to separate from the tree trunk.  I would hate to be hit by one as it fell! 

Trees are not the only thing that you need to look out for!

In Memory of Debbie Fink

The view from the bench

 In Honor of Deb Schnack
for 32 Years of Service to MO State Parks!

The view from the bench

 

 and the River, there is numerous miles right along the river's edge

In Memory of Margaret Murray Reeder and  Armand W. Reeder

The view from the bench

 Treloar has only a few buildings, but interestingly they are in nice shape, and interesting!

One of the interesting things about this ride were the number of bicyclist that were on the trail.  Usually when I ride the Katy Trail I am by myself.  I joke about dying out there and it being weeks before someone finds me.  Not Today.  It is May, and the number of riders was quite impressive.  This stretch is a long way from any town, but I must have met 35+ riders.  Interestingly none passed me, they were all going the opposite direction.  I met only a few going out, and a lot once I turned around.  There was a tour group, but they only accounted for 13 of the total.  There were a number that were touring on their own, or in groups of two or three.  It was nice to have company