It was another half decent night’s sleep at Rhineland last night. I reckon I was asleep in seconds after finishing the blog around 2145. I didn’t even hear the cars drive away from the nearby junior baseball game. The first time I woke up was around about 0230. That’s the second night in a row that I’ve had almost 5 hours of unbroken sleep. Absolute bliss. I’d gone to sleep in temperatures of around 25 celcius. In those wee small hours I was pretty cold and had to revert to using my very thin blanket.
Day 42 started with me attempting to dress the wound on my left foot. It took a good 20 minutes of huffing and puffing to do. My main aim was to try and cover and pad the bit of raw flesh that had been so agonising during the final miles yesterday.
After a short drive back to where I’d finished on day 41, I was on my way down the Katy Trail again. There wasn’t a soul about yet again.
I’ve heard a few people talk about unseasonably heavy rainfall in Missouri recently. There has been plenty of evidence of that in recent days with numerous farmers fields flooded.
I felt really good around the 4 mile point and started to stride out a bit. At 7.5 miles, without any notice, the pain in my left foot returned. I would describe it as “comfortable”. I managed to meet up with the RV just after 8.5 miles. I made the decision to attempt to add more padding to the problematic area of my left foot. This was a decision I would later become to regret.
I went on my way again. I wouldn’t be able to meet the RV again until another 5.5 miles. The Katy Trail was miles away from the road. This wouldn’t usually be a problem as it’s quite short stretch. It became a massive problem, however. At the 10 mile point the pain in my left foot was excruciating. It was a different position (on the outer edge) and felt like someone had stuck a knife in. Not even the views of the Missouri River to my left were of any comfort.
A nice lady called Terri (apologies if I’ve got the spelling wrong) passed me and we talked about my journey. She wished me well and went on her way down the trail.
After lots of limping and moaning I made it to the Portland trailhead. It was probably the most painful stretch of “movement” (I can’t call that running or even walking) since I had similar problems during the run across Australia in 2013.
There were a group of cyclists at the trailhead. We struck up a conversation and I found that they were cycling east to St. Charles. I told them about my journey and handed over a few leaflets. They were a really friendly bunch. The two ladies were Karen and Bonnie (I assume one of the gentlemen was called Clyde).
The first action back in the RV was to take the dressing off my left foot and ice my feet. I had a sandwich after that and fell asleep pretty much straight away. I woke up an hour later in what was now an absolute furnace of an RV. It was 30 Celsius outside.
I put on some new socks, didn’t bother with padding or dressing my left foot and got back out on the trail.
During the next few miles, the pain in my left foot was tolerable. That was luxury compared to how it had felt earlier in the day. There was a rare clearing and a chance to see the Missouri River in all its glory once again.
The views soon turned back to the now, very familiar trail shrouded with trees.
I spotted a strange looking rock at mile 18. The nearby information said it was called Standing Rock. I read that back later and it revealed quite a bit about the history of floods in the area and also the MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad or Katy).
After 19.4 miles of mainly limping I arrived at the Steedman trailhead. Alan said that there had been vultures waiting earlier.
It was at this point that I decided to end proceedings for the day. The amount of pain that I’d endured during the day had taken its toll. But I had lost the will to continue. These days on this trail have been physically but more so mentally challenging. The monotony of solitude in an area that rarely changes appearance has been very tough. Throw the foot pain into the mix and it’s a recipe for madness.
I didn’t quite like the look of Steedman as an overnight stop. The place was littered with junk and consisted of what looked like derelict properties. That’s not a recipe for my over active imagination to get a good nights sleep. I’m sure it was and perhaps is a decent place with decent people but I wasn’t about to hang around and find out.
We drove to the trailhead at nearby Mokane. That seemed decent at first. However, a nearby woman standing at the trailhead information sign made my Spidey sense tingle. I would say that she was in her 30s, had long mangled hair (a bit like when Deb hasn’t washed hers for a few days), and probably slept roughly in the clothes that she was wearing. She looked like she was carrying all of her possessions with her in 2 bags. Alan seemed to think he’d seen her before recently.
When Alan was filling up the bowl to soak my feet at a nearby tap she asked him if he had a “tarp or a blanket”. “No sorry we haven’t got anything spare” he replied. She was in no way aggressive or pushy. She seemed really desperate and down on her luck (in my imagination).
Alan left me to soak my feet in the RV and he went off to the local village in search of ice. When he returned, the woman approached him again and asked if he knew anyone in Portland who could bring her something. It was a strange question and Alan again gave an apologetic answer. Portland was the place where I’d slept for an hour earlier in the day.
The woman then disappeared into the trailhead toilet and was never to be seen again by us. Half an hour passed by and I took the decision to ask Alan to move the RV elsewhere. Something felt very off. As I’m typing this blog outside the Dollar General in Ewing Creek, I can’t but help feel like we should have at least offered her some bottles of water. Rightly or wrongly I’m an instinctively helpful person. On the face of it, this woman looked like she was in desperate need of help. I’m currently playing out many different scenarios in my mind as to how she arrived at sleeping (I assume) on the floor of a trailhead toilet on the Katy Trail in Missouri.
From a safety point of view I’m sure we’ve made the right decision to move elsewhere. But what if we could have helped in some small way. I don’t think that help would have been more than giving her water and perhaps one of Alan’s famous ham sandwiches.
As it turns out, the first meeting point in the morning is back at that trailhead. Perhaps we haven’t heard the last of this story.
TUNE OF THE DAY: A Bar Song (Tipsy) - Shaboozey.
Tomorrow aim is to get off this damned trail and make it to Jefferson City. There’s a Walmart there and Alan has ran out of microwave meals. Now there’s an incentive.
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