38°34'36.1"N 92°10'42.6"W
One of the greatest joys in life is when what was mundane and even obvious suddenly seems startling and new, like watching how the pilot lets the force of the river help steer the turn to the ramp, or just the big, invisible, familiar thingness of the river itself, which distance or busy lives might let us forget.
Every river is a big deal. Every river is a natural clock, marking the past even as it washes the past to the sea. I’ve been following Lewis and Clark on their 1804-1806 journey up the Missouri River, slowly winding my way west on a segment of the Katy Trail State Park.
The travel is slow, because I’m slow, and because I’ve been extremely cautious with the weather. Today, for example, I’ve been camped out in a hotel room in Jefferson City, not far from the State building, where members of the Freedom Caucus failed to use their filibuster to stop Medicaid funding for the state. I overheard some well-dressed gentlemen gripe about it at breakfast.
Between flood warnings and thundershower warnings, I’ve been less the adventurer I wanted to be the last few days— and more the frightened tourist seeking comfort and shelter. Tomorrow night will be the first time in an actual campground since Elsah five days ago. I’ll be at Cooper Landing in Easley, Missouri for one night. Then I’ll ride for 15 miles, possibly through another thunder shower, to another bed and breakfast.
My one physical book this trip has nothing to do with Lewis and Clark—at least not directly. It’s a collection of David Hinton’s translations of a few of Tu Fu’s poems He presents each poem three ways: the original ideogram, a literal translation of the poem, and Hinton’s verse translation, based on his knowledge of the the language and Taoist thought.
Hinton talks a lot about Absence, which, he says, is a generative force in Chinese philosophy. Out of absence, the cosmos develops a “tissue” of consciousness. So, in the swampy emptiness of the fields, there’s a blossoming, quiet and invisible, but also tangible. Maybe there’s something about bike travel that is just like that.
Hinton mentions a “sage” named Wang Hui-Chih.
Wang set out “on a whim” through the snow to visit a friend one day, but when he arrived, the whim had vanished, so he turned around and went home without seeing his friend.
I’m a little ambivalent. What if his friend needed company? I know my daily conversations with my wife keep me planted, and it’s hard to imagine starting to call Melissa only to let the whim slip away. But I appreciate the idea, letting something deeper and more spontaneous than habit dictate each moment. Then each act is something like a prayer.
And the story reminds me how grateful I am that I am retired, and that I will never have to suffer through another “networking” lunch with their papery, transactional conversations. Out of absence…
The Katy Trail west of Tebbetts, has been slow. The rain has dropped branches and brambles on the trail, and carved trenches and caves into the surface. I had to stop a couple of times to walk. I think it only gets worse. But I only have two more days on the old rail-trail before I ride pavement again. I look forward to the easier riding, but I’ll miss the trail as well. There isn’t anything else like the Katy Trail on this route.
I met a man with a dog named Coulter, after John Coulter, who made a name for himself on the expedition, then, with permission from Lewis and Clark, returned West for further adventures while the rest of the group went wearily home. The man pointed across the field, and across the river, and said that Coulter was buried somewhere over there, no one knew exactly where.
And I stayed at the Birdhouse Bed and Breakfast in McKittrick. I stayed here last time I rode this route, and knew ahead of time that I wanted to interview the proprietor, Joey Los. At that time, she was the mayor this small town. She seemed relieved to have given up on that job.
Her video is below. The day after our interview, while fixing breakfast, she talked about the house she lives in. It was built in the 1920s from scrap wood for a blind man in town. The community chipped in and donated the house to him.
"...more the frightened tourist seeking comfort and shelter." Say rather, "more the sensible traveler paying attention to his surroundings, including weather forecasts"!