Busy Weekends #3: Columbia MO MKT/Katy Trail

We set out from Flat Branch park in downtown Columbia. My sister met us there after work. Did I mention that my sister Colleen doesn't drive? She's never gotten her license. No medical reason, just hasn't. She lives near downtown Columbia, works downtown, and doesn't really need to drive. Her boyfriend does if there's something that needs to happen (like coming to visit St. Louis). Otherwise, no. The two of them also play bike polo, which is just what it sounds like.

Anyway, we set out from downtown Columbia on the MKT, which is a rail to trail bike trail that runs south through the city and out beyond. Lots of tunnels and bridges and pretty, pretty scenery in the Columbia section of the trail. Several nice water stops, too, with restrooms.

We'd made the mistake of coming all the way from St. Louis with 3 bikes on the roof, a bike trailer, and a trail-a-bike (a tandem converter for Jake's bike)--that wasn't the mistake, but the mistake was that we'd left the seat for the trail-a-bike at home. So Daisy had nowhere to sit. As we were bringing all this stuff off and out of our car, I started to freak out, but I realized our bike trailer can fit two, and I used to pull Daisy and Fiona together. I would pull the trailer. With 110 extra pounds behind me...for fun...but I did.

The MKT is a fine gravel path, and it's traveled so much that I didn't even notice the difference much on my vintage road bike. I love my bike, have I mentioned that? Here below you can see how it hitches onto the bike trailer. And below that, you can see Daisy and Billy snoozing away, 6 miles into the trip.

The friction and the breeze knocks them right out every time. Sleeping, they missed our first stop, where we ate blueberries and strawberries and enjoyed this awesome old railroad bridge.

After the bridge, we continued south (I assume south) on the MKT, past the water treatment plant, which has wetlands and redwinged blackbirds and although obviously a water treatment plant, was nothing like the ones I have seen before. Below, Colleen and Fiona have headed out ahead of us. The whole evening was beautiful like this.

We were aiming for the junction of the MKT and the Katy Trail, which is a rail to trail that runs from St. Charles out somewhere west of Columbia. Now that I've done a bit of it, I want to do a lot more.


We only did about a mile on the Katy, heading towards Rocheport (west), when the Katy crosses a thin country highway. Colleen turned left onto the highway to take us to "The Big Tree", which is the Missouri Champion Bur Oak (the biggest bur oak in Missouri). It has a circumference of 287 inches, a height of 90 feet and a spread of 130 feet. The guess is that it's about 300+ years old, but that's oral history, not fact. It's a big tree.

The Big Tree is 10 miles from Columbia, and you can see how the light is waning and beautiful here at the tree. With three long stops (twice on the old bridge) and a couple shorter ones, it took us almost exactly three hours to do the 20 miles. Not bad for hauling 110 extra pounds behind me, and with an almost 11 year old who really, really wished she had been in the trailer herself. Almost dark when we made it back to the car, we let Fiona pick dinner.

I was sore in the morning.