Eighteen months ago my husband started planning our vacation for the first week of July 2018. He has been saying for several years, that he would like to go to Missouri and ride bikes on the Katy Trail.  Have you ever heard of the Katy Trail? Well, I hadn’t either so I needed more information. The Katy Trail is a biking/ walking trail that runs along the abandoned Katy Railway spanning 237 miles across the state of Missouri.  The trails are made of crushed limestone with much of the trail winding through shaded canopies and past cool limestone bluffs fronting the Missouri River.

I have a bicycle.  It is a Schwinn ten-speed and I think I have ridden it twice in 12 years.  The first time I rode it with my husband we rode out through our local park, which has hills.  I thought I was going to die and I wound up walking the bike up the hills. Apparently, I was not in very good shape.  Now I will give myself some credit, I am in much better shape now. I get more exercise, on purpose, and try to eat better.  I even walked a half marathon last March. 

So in thinking about this bike riding thing, my questions ranged from, is it hilly, how far are we supposed to ride a day, where are we sleeping at night, is this something that I can survive?  I don’t know why I was so worried. I am married to the man with all the answers and all the solutions.

So back to 18 months ago, my husband starts talking about doing this again.  We now have an RV so the plan was to take the RV and to stay at RV parks on the trail.  So the question about where we are sleeping?  Answered.  Now how about how far are we supposed to ride a day? The plan? We get up early and ride 20 miles out and back one day and the next morning head in the other direction for 20 miles out and back.  Then we move the RV down the road to the next stop and do it all over again. So that’s 40 miles on a bike a day for five days! Yikes!!!!! Is he secretly trying to kill me?

The solution?  Electric assist bikes.  What is that? Well, it’s a bike that has an electric motor that helps us pedal easier and allows us to go farther than we would be able to on a regular bike.  I was intrigued by this idea. While I was away in Arkansas visiting my daughter and her family, my husband spent the weekend researching E-Bikes and trying to find the perfect ones for us.  Just a few weeks later, Millie entered my life. There she was a bright yellow fat-tired bicycle that looked like the old mini bike I had when I was 12. How fun is that. 

So with all my questions answered and my fears quelled, we set out for our first adventure on our E-Bikes to conquer the Katy Trail in Missouri.   It was fantastic. The part we rode was along the Missouri River and wound through small communities and farmland. We spent two nights in Hermann, which is an adorable, scenic German community right on the Missouri River.  

I could have spent a week in this quaint little community.  Our favorite place to eat in Hermann was at the Vintage Restaurant atop a hill attached to the Stone Hill Winery.  The food was delicious. We ate German food for lunch and dinner for two days. Then we discovered the Hermanof Winery which is located in the charming downtown area.  Thankfully my husband had saddlebags on his bike so we could load up and transport the wine back to the RV.

The morning we were riding to Rocheport was the most scenic.  This is where we rode through the limestone bluffs. As we pulled into Rocheport we came upon the Meriwether Cafe and Bike Shop right on the Katy Trail.  We had worked up a sweat and an appetite by the time we got there. Talk about home cooking at it’s best but in a trendy looking little cafe. This was a darling little cafe and one I want to visit again.    

The most bizarre little area we stayed was right on the Missouri River in an RV Park in Cooper’s Landing.  For a moment, I felt we had taken a wrong turn into this quirky little place, just south of Columbia. The most unexpected thing we discovered down on the river in the middle of nowhere, The Thai Kitchen.  Yes, we had authentic Thai food in the middle of nowhere in Missouri and we liked it.

The trip was truly magical and I am so glad we did it.  I had no problem riding 40-45 miles each day. It was a great way to see parts of our country you would never see from an airplane or traveling down an interstate highway.  We rode through cornfields, through abandoned train tunnels, across steel train bridges, around limestone bluffs, and along the Missouri River.  Clean air and friendly people.  

After our adventure in Missouri, which is 8 hours from where we live, we needed to discover other E-Bike adventure opportunities.  We discovered the Oklahoma River trails in Oklahoma City (just 2 hours from home), the Arkansas River trails in Tulsa and next up, the Arkansas River Trails in Little Rock.  Let the adventure continue.