Too Many Mosquito Bites to Count

One thing I can usually say about rain is that in the summer it usually drops the temperature afterwards, or at the very least the humidity. This was not the case when the rain finally stopped in Kansas. The next day was hot and sticky. The sun was out though. I could at least be grateful for that. I stopped at a coffeeshop called Meriwether in Leavenworth for a cinnamon roll and a latte. It always tickles me when something is named after Meriwether Lewis, so I had to go there. It was a cute coffee shop with a large seating area and a little artists market by the register.

My route took me through Weston that morning, along a lovely bike path with historical markers at Weston Bend State Park. I was a little worried that the gravel path would be washed out because of all of the rain, but I decided to risk it anyhow since it would be much nicer biking under shady trees than on the shoulder of a highway. Weston had a little Lewis and Clark Museum that had a brief documentary on Lewis and Clark in Missouri (yes, i was back in Missouri). It was a free museum inside a small old train station. Half of the building was dedicated to the museum, the other half was Weston’s town hall. I stopped for lunch, BBQ, at the Tin Kitchen. The Main Street there was particularly popping. There were a lot of places to eat or grab coffee. I wanted to go to the Weston History Museum. I walked around town waiting for it to open and saw a girl greeting a golden retriever puppy who wriggled half way through a fence and got stuck. The owner had an injured arm, so I ran over, asked if I could come in her yard and helped save the puppy.

The museum was supposed to open at 1pm but it never did, so I continued on out of town, reluctant because of the heat and steep slope of the hills I needed to climb to leave. Shortly after that I stopped at Lewis and Clark State Park, by Lewis and Clark Lake and walked around their outdoor interpretive walk. I took a break under a picnic shelter, and a woman visiting the park offered me a bottle of cold water and chatted with me about my bike ride. I was grateful. It was a hot day, and evidently because of all of the rain and flooding, the water spigots and fountains at the park were out of order. I couldn’t refill my water. After that my afternoon was a rush north. I crossed back into Kansas in Atchison, where Amelia Earhart was from, and groaned when I realized the trail was taking me down a scenic biway called “Glacial Hills.” For the first time in my ride I’d gotten to the point where there was a single campground and nothing between here and there. In Troy, Kansas I tried to find a hotel because I was exhausted. I stopped at a restaurant for an appetizer and found out that there was a family reunion and the only place in town was booked up. That meant I was back on the road and trying to beat the sun to White Cloud, Kansas where there was supposed to be two campgrounds.

I got there barely before dusk. The first campground was right on the water and on the highway, which made me nervous because of all the flooding lately. Not to mention that there was a car just sort of idling there. The other place was supposed to be a park called City Park. It didn’t seem to exist, or at least in its place was Community Park, which was a playground with a public restroom so dirty I don’t think you can properly imagine the ick factor, and I’m going to spare you that description. I wasn’t about to bike further on the highway at night, so I pitched my tent in the playground, nestled between the picnic shelter and a play structure. I was swarmed by mosquitos as I set up my tent as quickly as possible. I am not exaggerating when I say I had at least a hundred mosquito bites by the time I went to bed. My bug spray did nothing.

Turned out that play structure was some sort of animal’s favorite haunt that evening. So in my tent, which I had mistakenly set up directly under a street light, I was woken every hour or so by the sound of an animal whimpering. With the light above me I kept thinking it was dawn, and the minutes crept by, until finally at 5am I packed up, and got rolling just as the sun was rising. I was only a few miles away from Nebraska, so I crossed the border before the sun had finished rising. I found a place in Rulo, Nebraska, to grab breakfast. The pro to mornings like this where I woke up before dawn, was a very full day with a lot of miles under my belt. Unfortunately, I stopped at a Sonic for a cold drink in Falls City, and wound up biking five miles south instead of north. It added ten unnecessary miles to my day. I wanted to get to Peru, Nebraska, where there was supposed to be a campground, but it was a boiling day with few places to stop.

In Nemeha I stopped at a convenience store/sandwich shop for a cold drink and to spend some time in air conditioning before I continued down the road. While I was there I browsed their bug spray selection, since mine had failed me so miserably the night before. A man in the shop told me he had some bug spray he’d just give me in his truck. He went out to get it, came back and said he didn’t have it, but if I’d wait around 45 minutes he’d pick up some for me. I’d already been paused a while, so I told him I’d rather get biking again.

I continued on to Brownsville, Nebraska, a quaint, artsy, little town. I stopped at a coffee shop to try to get the energy to go another ten or so miles to Peru. The Steamboat Trace bike path would take me from here all the way to Nebraska City. As I sat there though, I overheard a woman at the next table talking about how the path had been closed since the 2019 flood. I had just traveled down to the bottom of a set of large hills to stop in this town, under the impression that I’d have a flat rails to trail path to follow all the way to Nebraska City. Now I had to figure something else out. I didn’t have it in me to go back up those hills tonight, so I spent a long while looking online for other options. Just down the street there was a hotel that was inside of an old steamboat. If I was going to splurge on a hotel, that was just the lure I needed. As I sat in the coffee shop trying to make a decision, the man from Nemaha came in the door and handed me a bottle of bug spray. I have no idea how he found me. He said he drove all the way to Peru and then came here. I had mentioned the Steamboat Trace, so I guess he put the pieces together. I was startled but grateful. As I walked back to my bike I stopped to talk with a woman on the porch next door. She asked if he found me, I guess she pointed him in my direction when he saw my bike. I talked to her about the hotel and the Steamboat Trace. She said the hotel was never fully booked so I could definitely find a room there, and told me that she had ridden an ATV down the Steamboat Trace recently, that you could get on it just up the road and ride it all the way to Peru. I was ready to try, but in the morning when turning around and back tracking didn’t seem like such a huge deal.

It was a bed and breakfast which meant a large, proper breakfast in the morning. That made the whole thing financially feasible to me. I could pay a little extra even to go on a steamboat dinner cruise that night. I told the woman at the front desk about my bike trip, and by the time I went on the steamboat for dinner, it seemed like everyone knew I was biking the Lewis and Clark Trail. I felt like a celebrity with so many strangers asking questions about my trip. The cruise lasted about two hours, and I enjoyed my first float so far on the Missouri River.