Journeys in Space: An Excellent Motorcycle Adventure! Day 4!

An Excellent Motorcycle Adventure!  Day 4!

An Excellent Motorcycle Adventure!  Day 4!

Ruth has really done an excellent job with this hotel.  The room is spectacular, the view of the Mississippi River at dawn is spectacular.  We kind of get the impression, though, that it is not really a Four Seasons… maybe they are just licensing the name or the brand.  The restaurant last night was not fantastic.  The employees don’t seem to know what they are doing.

On the other hand… it is a brand new hotel, so maybe they are still shaking things out.  Maybe everybody is still getting trained.  It is associated with the new waterfront casino, so maybe that has everyone confused.  Or maybe the casino patrons are not so demanding of service at these high prices, they just want to GET TO THE CASINO…

I just don’t know.

But the room, the view, is spectacular.

Today is our first real day of vacation.  We have been speeding along the interstate highways, racking up miles instead of racking up experiences… to day our goal is to take it slow, see some sights… see the country side.

NO INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Monument

Within a short walk from the hotel is the Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Monument.  This is commonly known as the St Louis Arch, Gateway to the West.  The arch is set in a park of about 90 acres with a view of the river and of the Old Federal Courthouse[1].  There is a lot of construction going on right now… you can’t get down to the riverboats on the water…

The arch is spectacular.  It is EXTREMEMLY slender, being only about 50 feet wide, rising 600 feet into the air.  A truly spectacular piece of art, architecture and engineering[2].

Bellefontaine Cemetery

Ruth is not a fan of cemeteries, so it takes a lot of convincing and wheedling, and promises of cocktails later, to get her to agree to spend an hour driving to, and visiting, the Bellefontaine Cemetery, the final resting place of Captain William Clark who died in 1838.  Captain Clark is the progenitor of eight generations of St Louisians[3].

While we were wandering around the cemetery, we discovered a “bonus grave”[4].

St Charles, MO

Lewis and Clark and the Discovery Corps departed on their epic adventure from St Charles, MO on May 21, 1804.  It seemed an appropriate place to visit.

St Charles was founded as a French settlement in 1769.  St Louis and St Charles were transferred back and forth between French and Spanish rule several times, depending on how various wars in Europe were being played out.

There is a small museum, The Lewis and Clark Boathouse and Nature Museum, that is well worth a visit.  It is staffed by fanatical and rabid Lewis and Clark aficionados, including people that spend their spare time re-enacting portions of the journey.  The museum includes artifacts from the expedition and replicas of the boats used during the journey.

 

I was surprised by how large the boats were.  The keelboat was 60 feet long.  Even the smaller boat, the pirogue, was 48 feet long.

After visiting the museum we walked around St Charles Village, looking for something (just a bottle of water) to drink.  This was more of a challenge that we anticipated.  I had actually suggested to Ruth that we buy a couple of bottles of water in the museum gift shop, where they were for sale at a very reasonable price.   She thought that maybe we could do better somewhere else, and it is always good to walk, so we spent the next hour wandering around St Charles looking for a convenience store, or something, where we could get a couple of bottles of water.  It was a hot day and we were thirsty.

St Charles Villaage is an incredible picturesque, attractive, and charming community.  Main Street dates to the founding of the village in 1769 (although most of the building date only to the mid to late 19^th century).  There are charming restaurants.  There are charming clothing boutiques.  There are charming antique stores.  There are charming art galleries featuring the works of St Charles artists.  There are charming knick-knack stores.  There are charming places where you can rent a bicycle for the nearby Katy bike trail[5].  There are even charming real estate offices were you can meet with people that will sell you your very own piece of this picturesque, attractive and charming community.

However, there isn’t a convenience store to be found.

We finally got a couple of bottles of water at the charming ice cream and fudge shop.  Very picturesque.

It’s time for some real motorcycle riding!

So far on this trip, we having been cranking out the miles in the interstate highway system, to get to St Louis, to satisfy some time constraints, and while everything has been great, great, great… interstate highway travel is not how we generally like to spend our motorcycling time.

The preferred route on a motorcycle is usually an idyllic, country road.  One that wends and winds its way through the country side.  Preferably a two laner through farm country, with glimpses of lakes or rivers and streams.  Where people wave as you pass by.

I’ve identified what I think is the perfect route for our next leg of the trip to Kansas City MO. [6] Route MO-94 is a wending, winding road passing through the country side.  It passes through idyllic farm country, with occasional glimpses of the Missouri River or tributary rivers.  It look perfect.  It runs for about 100 miles, and then we can switch to an even prettier road, Route MO-100, which will take us through some charming towns and villages.  Then we rejoin MO-94 for the final run into Kansas City.  The sun is shining, it is a beautiful day.

The trip starts out in a wonderful fashion, soon after leaving St Charles we cross the Missouri River on a wonderful steel box trestle bridge.  It must date from the 1930s, estimating from the riveted steel box structural elements.  There are bridges like this all over American, gifts to us from our great-grandparent who built them for us during the great depression.

Then we start motorcycling in earnest.  The topology of the land is hilly.  These are limestone bluffs overlooking the river.  We go up and down and back and forth and up a STEEP hill and around a HAIRPIN turn and then OHMYGOD a steep drop and turn and then a short straightaway and then another hill and another hairpin turn and then do it all again.  And again.  And again.  For the next two and a half hours.

In some ways driving a motorcycle is easier than driving a car.  They can be more maneuverable.  The respond to the road.  You bank into the turns.  Some roads are more difficult than others.  The Kangamangus Highway in NH is a great motorcycle road.  It is wide, well constructed.  The banked turns are well analyzed.  It is an almost effortless ride.  The Pacific Coast highway is a more challenging road, especially as you get North toward Big Sur.  There are many hairpin turns and switchbacks.  The road is narrower.  But it is navigable and lovely.

MO-94 was designed by Satan.

The nominal speed limit is 55, but that is a joke.  Every hill, every turn has a custom speed limit, you know, one of those signs that say “40 MPH” and accompanied by a little squiggly symbol that means twisty-turny.  Or “20 MPH” accompanied by an curved arrow indicating a sharp turn.  I would say that the average speed limit is closer to 45 mph than to 55 mph.  We averaged 38 mph.  It was tough.

I think the thing that amazed me the most was the amazing changes of directions that happened at the top of blind hills.  You would be on a steep banked uphill turn to the left, say.  You are locked into a trajectory where the speed and angle of the bike will take a safe path over the roadway that you can see.  It is a blind hill, so you can’t see what is on the other side.  Typically, you will start the turn closer to the yellow line in the middle of the road and swing slightly toward the right edge coming back closer to the yellow line at the crest.  Often, there is a steep drop off on the right side.  As you crest the top of the hill, though, SURPRIZE!, the road goes sharply right, although it is still banked for a left turn.  Yikes!  You have to change angle and speed to adjust.  You should really downshift, but you don’t have time, you are fighting the turn every inch of the way.  And then OHMYGOD another 20MPH sharp left turn!

Well, we completed MO-94, but I can’t say I was proud of my driving.  I was always out of sync with the road, up shifting too late, down shifting too early, not having the right speed on the turns.  Humbling.[7]

Route MO-100 was slightly easier, it had only been designed by one of Satan’s demons… in an apprenticeship program I guess.  When we got through that stretch, again only averaging only 40 mph and it was time to rejoin 94, I tucked our collective tails between our legs and bailed out.  We jumped onto MO-50, a wonderful two laner, and sometimes four laner, with no traffic that passes through lovely towns and the capital of Missouri, Jefferson City.

We finally arrived at Kansas City, our destination for the night.  Ruth did an amazing job with the hotel, an in-budget-boutique-hotel in the up and coming Kansas City Power and Light District.[8]  We had a fabulous dinner and declared victory on the day.

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Summary

Date:  June 26, 2014
Departure Location:  999 N 2^nd St., St Louis MO
Arrival Location:  1111 Grand St., Kansas City MO

Total Miles:  327
Total travel time: 10:03
Total miles/total travel time: 33 mph[9]

Number of States:  1 (Missouri).
Number of Watersheds:  1 (Mississippi River… Missouri River Division)
Stops:  4 (Bellefontaine Cemetery, St Charles MO (museum), Linn MO (leg stretch), California MO (gas))
Weather:  Partly Cloudy AM, Partly Cloudy PM

Temperature:  7:00 AM (St Louis MO) 78 ^ͦ F, 12:00 Noon (St Charles MO) 85 ^ͦ  F, 7:00 PM (Kansas MO) 83 ^ͦ  F
Lodging:  The Ambassador Hotel, Kansas City MO

Restaurants:  801 Chop House, Kansas City, MO

 

 

[1] This courthouse is where the famous Dred Scott case started.

[2] Like all classical arches, it takes the shape of a catenary.  A catenary is a mathematical function, based on hyperbolic trigonometric functions, that balances an evenly distributed stress against gravity.

[3] Ironically Meriwether Lewis died childless, murdered in Tennessee[3] in 1809.

[4] The cigarette pack seems to have been left as an offering by an acolyte or devotee.

[5] A terrific rails to trails conversion that runs for 240 miles through Missouri

[6] I use the singular first person pronoun here, “I”, as opposed to the plural “we”.  As you will see, blame will need to be assigned later.  “Success has many parents, but failure stands alone.”

[7] We did have another near brush with An Alternate World, we were cresting over one of these blind hills, turning to the left and at the top of the hill, the road continues left at the crest.  We are close to the yellow line as we crest.  As we top the hill I can see a Ford 350 pickup truck coming up the other side and about to cross into my lane.  The road is banked the wrong way, so any sudden moves will send me off to the right into the ravine.  We are pretty much locked into our trajectory at this point, so all we can do is watch.  He is about 150 feet away and the closing velocity between the two vehicles is about 100 miles an hour, so there is just about a second before we crash.  Fortunately he jerks his truck to his right, our left, and we avert disaster.

[8] This is an area of downtown Kansas City here a bunch of old buildings have been transformed into trendy hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs.  The centerpiece is an outdoor music stage featuring national and regional acts, mostly country western music (as you might expect).  Tonight’s bands were Travis Martin & Cassadee Pope.  There were about 2000 young women traveling in packs of six to eight, in standard uniforms of mini-dresses and cowboy boots (or alternately, daisy dukes and cowboy boots).  There were about 5000 young men traveling in smaller packs of two or three, in standard uniforms of cargo shorts, tee shirts and flip flops.  We had left the scene before things reached what seemed to be the individually predestined conclusions.

[9] Ruth has protested this calculation.  She wants to take out the time and miles we spent at the cemetery and at St Charles.   By her reckoning we did 294 miles in 6:47, 43 miles per hour.