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Day One, October 15, The Longest Day

    We were up at 2:30am Saturday morning. By three, we were in the station wagon and heading to the San Francisco airport. We arrived with two hours and 15 minutes to spare before the flight. I went to the American Airlines self check in station and obtained our tickets and ordered the tags for the four bags, two suitcases for panniers and bike gear and two boxes for the tandem. The airline clerk brought the tags over and immediately asked, "What's in the boxes?"

    I told her it was two halves of our tandem bike. She came back with, "You know there's an eighty dollar charge for bicycles."

    I explained that American's website does mention the charge but says that if the bike is packed in regulation size suitcases,  it is to be counted as the regular two suitcase luggage limit and not as a bicycle.

    She spent about 15 minutes looking at something on a screen and obviously could not find the sections I was quoting. She came back and said that if we wanted to ship the bike it would cost us $80. I didn't want to argue and just handed her our credit card.

    The whole check in only took about 20 minutes. We still had an hour an a half to wait and snuggled into a corner of the gate that we'd be boarding, reading two novels that we had brought with us.

    The flight to St. Louis was four hours. While on the plane I had to spin the hour hand two hours ahead on my watch since we were traveling west to east. After touchdown we picked up our luggage and immediately noticed a 3 inch hole in the side of one of the bike boxes where something had punched through the 3/4 inch pine side of the box. We headed over to baggage claim to make a report but were refused because the bike container was not a "manufactured" container. The boxes the tandem travels in are home made of pine and plywood and pretty stout but not designed to be speared by steel poles as was obviously the case. Again, not wanting to argue and get going I told the lady I'd just take a picture of the box and file a claim if there was damage to the bike. She shrugged and walked away. She obviously had not taken American Airlines sensitivity courses.

    The U-Haul agency where we planned to rent our transportation to Clinton MO was just outside the airport boundary. They had said they would pick us up if possible but if they didn't have enough staff, we'd have to take a cab. When called, they only had two people on duty. We grabbed a cab. The driver was from Somalia. He asked where we wanted to go and I gave him the address. He had a blank look. I had a Mapquest print out of how to get to the agency and we took off. I expected that the ride would take about ten minutes. It soon became apparent that he was clueless as to where he was going and couldn't read the Mapquest map. He only knew one route, from the airport to the downtown hotels. After making several wrong turns he got out a cell phone and a GPS, one in each hand, to try to find out where the U-Haul agency was located. He did this while driving and ended up driving down the wrong side of the road. A car was approaching and after quietly telling him to change lanes several times, my wife leaned forward from the back seat, jammed her arm over his shoulder and yelled into his ear, "MOVE THE CAR OVER TO THAT LANE!"

    After a half hour we pulled into the U-Haul center, unloaded our bags and waived our Somali driver goodbye. Unbelievably, my wife even gave him a tip.

   It took a little over an hour to assemble the tandem. No damage had been done where the box had been penetrated. We stuck the suitcases inside the bike boxes and left them at the U-Haul center as previously arranged, tied the tandem to the inside of the truck and were on our way.

    By this time we were hungry. You are no longer are fed on domestic flights. We kept on seeing a chain called, "Steak and Shake" and decided to give them a try. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries and a shake and Jeanette ordered a salad, a chicken sandwich and chili. The burger sucked, the fries were thin and greasy but the shakes were great. Jeanette liked her chili and her shake as well but nixed the sandwich. The salad was never delivered.

    The drive to Clinton was over 250 miles, most of it on Interstate 70 west. We had wondered if Missouri was a dry state but that question was quickly answered when we pulled off the freeway to use the bathroom. I walked into the store portion of the station and found three long isles of booze right inside the door, from hard liquor to beer. We weren't going to go thirsty in Missouri!

    We turned off I 70 west and onto State 13 south through Warrensburg to Clinton. I had been told that cycling from Warrensburg to Clinton was impractical because the State 13 had a high volume of traffic and no shoulder. Instead I found that it resembled the same country roads that I was familiar with around Lodi, low traffic count, straight and little to no shoulder. In addition, the last seven miles from Warrensburg to Clinton had a very wide shoulder. Since AMTRAK stops in Warrensburg, if someone wanted to ride the complete trail, it would be possible to ride south on 13 from Warrensburg to Clinton, about 25 miles, if one was comfortable riding country roads with no shoulder and high speed traffic.

    We rolled into Clinton at 10:30pm and checked into the Safari Hotel. It's one of those old single story strip hotels built in the 50's and 60's but clean and reasonable. We were in bed 15 minutes after checking in. It was a 19 hour day.

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Alternatives to U-Haul - If you're on standard sized bikes you can catch AMTRAK in St. Louis and ride to either Sedalia and start your ride east from there or if you want to start in Clinton, stay on the train to Warrensburg and, once there, ride south to Clinton. Check AMTRAK for costs. 

Highway 13 south from Warrensburg to Clinton is really nothing more than a country road and has little to no shoulder for the first 18 miles. It's similar to roads I ride daily in the farm country where I live. Traffic varies and can be heavy at times. A rider would have to be aware of traffic, have a good rear view mirror and use good judgment. It would NOT be a road to ride at night. The last seven miles into Clinton have a wide shoulder and would be no problem. 

Another alternative for tandems from St. Louis to Clinton would be to use a shuttle service. The price quoted from St. Louis to Clinton was $250, a little less than the van rental. A little cheaper but not as handy as the van rental. 

Enterprise, the only car rental in both Clinton and St. Louis does not rent vehicles one-way from St. Louis to Clinton.

Recommended:

The Safari Budget Inn **
1505 N. 2nd Street
Clinton, MO
660-885-3395
King size bed, no smoking - $40.50

U-Haul
8961 Dunn Road
Hazelwood, MO 63042
314-331-7775

Truck rental $251 plus $38 in gas to fill the tank at check-in at Clinton. The people at the U-Haul allowed us to store our suitcases and tandem boxes there while on the trip and provided a place for us to repack when we were finished. They even gave us a lift to the airport free of charge (I did tip the guy, he did a great job).

Day 2 - Clinton to Sedalia, 49 miles