Friday, June 19: 4 PM - Off day and I actually loved it. Felt amazing to just relax in the morning and watch the news and drink coffee in our little cozy cabin. And wow, it just rained all of last night, and darned near all day long today. The rain subsided a couple times, but by and large it was just constant for the past 12 hours. Finally, around 2 PM the rain stopped, and it’s been really cloudy from then on. I do think we’re in the clear though for a resumption of riding tomorrow. 

Now Judy has had a tough day just sitting around. I worked almost all day long, while she napped, read, watched TV and looked out the door a gazillion times to see it the rain had subsided enough for her to go out and do a walk and run. That didn’t happen until 2 PM. In a way I just love these rain-out days when I’m doing X country riding. It’s a no excuses reason to just chill for a day and recharge. Now it puts me even further behind for this trip, yet what was I going to do, be a hardass and ride in non-stop driving rain on a lime gravel trail for 6-7 hrs of misery? NOPE, at least not after dealing with this crap for the past 2 weeks where I did ride in the rain on gravel trails and gravel berm.

We’re situated just about 200 yrds from the Katy Trail here at the Sundermeier RV park. And all around us is flooding. The trail parking areas right behind us, and in many of the places in the downtown are now closed due to flooding, not so much from the Missouri River, but from all the water collecting in the low lying parking lots and access roads. The Katy actually sits up high, so you’ll have this ribbon of high ground surrounded by flooded out areas. It’s exactly like it was back in 2011 with I did a X country trip on dirt and asphalt. Came through here back then and the Missouri was just overflowing its banks into Frontier Park in downtown St. Charles. Ditto today. But the water is actually subsiding as I write this. And speaking of St. Charles - great little town with a very cool “old town” area just in front of the Missouri River - well worth the stop for a day if you’re out in this neck of the woods. 

We’re going out to the Trailhead Brewery again tonight to relax again. It’s good for the soul to not be a cheap ass for a day or so and enjoy a place rather than skimp and just hole up in a motel room or cabin and do nothing but watch cable. 

7 PM - Just got back from Trailhead Brewery, and had a dynamite dinner and drinks. Had the Dark Ale and Stout and they were super! If you ever go here, hit it between 4 and 7 PM where you get half price apps. and the house thin crust pizzas. The burgers are amazingly good to! I think Judy’s got her “dining out” fix for a while, so we’ll be back to Subway and Golden Coral! Back to reality we go. 

I’ve been doing some checking on the trail conditions and as of yet have not come across any major news on trail closures on the Katy. Now that does NOT mean that there isn’t going to be some issues, but at least things don’t look dismal right now. So up early tomorrow and I’ll do the ferry dock to St. Charles section. Then check out of cabin, and subsequently ride with Judy on the Katy for a stretch. Weather forecast is good for the next week…BUT temps expected in the 90’s all week. Also a chance of afternoon/evening thunder storms a couple of those days.