Owensville, Missouri

A little note on Owensville. Men of a neighboring town were competing in a horseshoe contest about 170 years ago to decide what they would name the plot of land next to them. The final round was a man name Luster vs. a man named Own. Guess who won? Luster. Apparently, after winning the game of horseshoes, Luster insisted the town be named for his opponent Owen. Today there are several Owensvilles in the US, but if Luster used his name, it would have been the only Lusterville in the US.

Wake up call: 430 am. Game Plan: beat the 110 degree heat index that had been kicking our butts in St. Louis the last two days. The ride: 100 miles. As we got closer to the Ozark Mountains today, the terrain got a lot hillied, reminiscent of Pennsylvania. Rolling hills actually made the day better because we were saved from the monotony of flat land where constant pedaling in necessary. The opportunity to shirt weight and body positions was a gift. 430 is such an ugly hour and I didnt even start functioning until mile 20 of the ride which was a good thing because it made the day got by faster. We passed through many small towns today, my favorite of which was named Bland. Let me tell you, the name is a pefect description. To help pass the time, we often play "would you rather" where a rider comes up with a scenario to present to the group such as would you rather live in El Dorado with no hopes of ever finding love, or live in the slums of India with your soulmate. Then everyone takes time to think, answer, and explain their logic. As the day goes on teh ridiculousness of the scenarios broadens to include such things as lepechauns, unicorns, houses made of clouds, underwater mermaid adventures, etc. Today was a day of crashes and close calls. One girl crashed in a construction zone as she tried to move over lanes and her tire caught the lip on the pavement and she bit the dust. A cop car immediately came over to block off traffic and make sure she was ok. She wasn't going fast, so not too much harm done. However, later in the day she crashed again while in a paceline and got her shifter ripped off her bike. Apparently, that's about a $300 fix, so although she it physically ok, it was a pricey day. One girl that I was riding with today crashed HARD. Missouri has rumble strips all over the side of their rodes. Cyclists stay to the right of these and in the break down lane so there is a buffer between us and traffic. However, there is a lot more debris in the breakdown lane, which often quickly turns into nothing more than a gutter of garbage. Anyway, there were two girls in front of me in a paceline when I noticed from the back that a large area of gravel was covering the whole lane up front. This is a big caution to cyclists because gravel will take you down so fast. The two girls tried to go through it as I moved over the rubble strip and into the actual lane. I saw one make it through, but it was disaster for the second girl. Her front tire kicked out hard to the left and skipped on the gravel. Her handlebars jammed under her frame as her wheel moved perpendicular to the flow of the road. Her left foot came unclipped and as she caught an edge she was launched from her bicycle and landed on her butt. I quickly grabbed her bike and moved it out of traffic as the other girl pulled her off to the side to tend to her. Two cars immediately stopped to see if she was ok, a police car came 4 minutes later and our support van also showed up. She had a sore butt and lots of road rash on her legs and elbow, but other than that she was fine. Her bike seat virtually broke and her alignment has to be messed up, but this is lucky for how nasty the spill looked as she was ejected going about 26 mph. The most lucky part of the whole ordeal was that no cars were coming from behind because if they were, she might not be alive, or atleast severely injured because the actual accident took place in the middle of the lane.

We were informed this morning that we were riding to Belle, MO instead because Owensville was too busy with vacation bible schools to host us anymore. No one has ever heard of Belle, so we thought we were going to be in the sticks with nothing to do. This would have been true, if not for the county fair going on. Emma, Max, and I got in around 1pm and went to explore. We found the fair and saw the outrageous price of $20 per person being charged. I gave the man at the front gate a little donation magic talk about who were are and what we're doing and he eventually gave us tickets for free. We walked around the fair grounds to explore what our course of action would be when we came back later that night after showering. We told the rest of the group about the fair when we got to the church and we all decided to go after dinner. Speaking of dinner, what a situation we were in for food. My chore group this week was dinner crew, but with limited supplies to work with, we really had nothing to feed the group. We had a cooler full of cooked hamburgers and brats leftover from the barbeque the night before. We walked around the school we were staying at and found 3 microwaves in teachers rooms. Since we just ate this stuff last night, I wanted to switch it up a little bit so I found skewers in a bin we have, cut up all the meat and made meat kabobs that we heated up in the three microwaves we set up in the science lab. I wanted to use a bunsen burner to reheat food, but none were available. We ended up getting a last minute donation from a restaurant of catfish which was enjoyed a lot more than the meat kabobs. After dinner, we returned to the fair, but the new man at the game wouldn't let the others in who didn't have tickets, so they snuck in or waited until after 930 when they could get in for free. We got ride tickets donated and went nuts on the pirate ship, the scrambler, and all the traditional favorites for a couple hours. There was a legit country tracker pull unlike anything I've ever seen before. Top it all off with a corndog, and call it a perfect night. I don't think anyone not on this trip can understand the pure joy of whipping around on a ride and getting the cool wind in my face with feet just dangling after a 100 mile ride in the heat. Nothing has ever felt better and even better was the stereotypical fair crowd. Cut off shirts, hats, jeans, cowboy boots, cigarettes, and Budweiser...exactly as I envisioned Belle, MO.