Strafford to St. Robert, MO 05-09-2026 Day 29

Today’s breakfast was a combination of last night’s calzone and whatever was available in our “continental breakfast”. It did not include eggs or any other protein except milk and yogurt. I made some instant oatmeal, added some raisin bran to it, coffee and most of an apple after my calzone appetizer. There was an 85+ year old man in a walker getting a cup of coffee. I helped him find a place to sit and carried his coffee so he could keep his hands on his walker. I enjoyed getting bits and pieces of his life story after I answered some questions about our ride. The most interesting one from him was about how he was driving a semi at age 16 in Illinois. His family was in Tennessee and made their living raising cattle. So, here he is driving his big truck, sees a car on the side of the road with a door open and there is a woman at the wheel with one leg out the car. She’s giving birth! Having helped deliver a few calves he jumped in to help. Some state troopers arrived because his truck was blocking traffic. The troopers were ready to haul him off before they saw the bigger situation. They called for help and did what they could in the meantime. This old man has led an interesting life!

We were on the road by 7:30 It was sunny and about 51F. The wind was light and coming out of the West. All was good. We started at an easy pace. Ron has been working through some knee issues, but will get stronger as the day goes, or at least that’s my impression.

Ron captured me early in our ride.

Looking at the elevation profile, it seemed like we were going to have a lot of “rollers”. Lots of up and downs of all sizes. The smaller ones allowed us to use our downhill momentum to help climb the uphill. Some were just too long or steep to make that happen. We had to grind out some tough ones over the course of the day. I remember one in the last 10 miles that was close to a mile long climb.

One of our biggest problems is with the cars or trucks that share the road with us. Some are too polite. They will go slow right behind us and be too timid to pass, even though it is clear no one is coming from the opposite direction. Others don’t give us much space, even though the other lane has no traffic. They don’t realize that many of the county roads here in Missouri have rumble strips along the outer stripe that make it unreasonable to ride on a bike. There is often a foot or less (nothing) beyond the rumble strip.

The first town of any size we came to was Marshfield. We took a break outside a small market. I got some milk to wash down a muffin I got from the hotel. There was a woman outside selling her handmade items she had sewn. She never learned, but got a sewing machine 6 years ago and makes up whatever the Lord puts in her head.

As we headed up the road through Conway and Phillipsburg, there were some “Roadside Attractions” Click on each image for a better view.

And as Mike Thuerich pointed out to me, Phillipsburg has the Redmon’s – World’s Largest Candy Factory and Gift Store. It said so on the outside!

As we crossed over I-44 to a different frontage road that marks Historic Route 66, we headed north to Lebanon. It was big enough to have several franchise eateries. We opted for discount grocery store that had a bench where we could sit on something other than a bicycle saddle. I had milk, banana, and the last of the muffin and breakfast bar I got from the hotel this morning. A real restroom also came in handy. As we went further into town, they had a nice display in a park along the roadside.

After Lebanon, there wasn’t much to see but a lot of road. There were signs for places called Sleeper, Glascozark, and Buckhorn, but we didn’t see much other than a view from a bridge over a river. The afternoon was getting hot.

As you can see in the video, you have to lift off the saddle once in a while to get relief where the sun don’t shine.

My ride statistics are going to be 2 miles shy of St. Robert. Yesterday I lost the 3rd of my 5 buttons that control my GPS. I accidently stopped the ride before our final destination. That happened when we stopped for a beer in Waynesville.

When we went into the bar, there was a big crowd across the street. They were having some type of celebration associated with the 100th anniversary of Route 66. Some kids looked they had just come from a prom.

We were able to find a seat. A young lady was working on her computer and struck up a conversation with us. Dressed the way we are, we tend to get noticed easily. She was in the air force, training to be a warrant officer. We talked about her life in the military, bouncing between her now home in Japan and various training and short term assignments. She is juggling life as a mother to a 3 year old. Her husband, out of the military now takes care of their daughter full time. She asked about our trip and admired our ability to ride so far. In reality we were just chasing a beer.

We made the final up and down ride to our hotel 2 miles away (even though I didn’t get full credit). After the usual cleanup and unpacking we got back on our bikes to ride to a diner for dinner. I had a pork tenderloin sandwich that was as huge as some I’ve had in Indiana. But it was not nearly as good. Too much batter coating and it didn’t get pounded flat enough. But when you have a good shake, you can’t complain.

We had decided to ride so that we could stop at Walmart to get something for tomorrows breakfast. Like last night’s restaurant that advertised beer, but didn’t serve it, the hotel claimed breakfast but only has coffee. “Going under some remodeling changes”. Is spite of all that, we still saw some pieces of history, had interesting conversations with strangers, and no flats! I’ve got a GPS I’m going to try and fix with some pencil erasers to replace missing buttons.

The ride stats are here. The 3 D video is here.

The Not So Lone Rider