When I woke up yesterday, I was still pretty tired, so decided to stick to my original plan and take the day off. The extra rest seemed to do me some good. Today was a very pleasant day of riding through the hills of north central Missouri. There were some rain showers to the north of me. I could see them, but they never came far enough south to affect me. They did, however, keep the temperatures down until mid-afternoon. By then, I was at my goal for the day.
Today was a wasted day. When I woke up this morning, it was raining. That was actually a good thing because the rain kept the temperatures down. After the rain stopped, I headed north from La Plata and had a nice tail wind. I made it to Kirksville, about 15 miles away, in about an hour and stopped to get something for breakfast. As I was eating, I began to feel really tired. The next place to stop was about 40 miles away and I really didn’t feel like I wanted to ride 40 more miles, so I decided to stop in Kirksville.
I don’t know why I can’t seem to get motivated to have a good ride today. Maybe the heat from the past few days has taken more energy out of me than I realize. I had planned to take tomorrow off because it is supposed to be the hottest day of the heatwave. Maybe I will use today as a day off and see how I feel in the morning.
I changed my intended route because of the heat. I had planned to head north to state highway 6, then west. After looking at what was ahead, I noticed there would be no place to stop in case the heat hit me like yesterday. The closest campground or motel was about 50 miles away. If I committed to that route, I would be locked into a long day. After yesterday, I felt I needed some options closer just in case. So I headed out of Hannibal on US 36. It is a four-lane divided highway, which I don’t particularly like, but it did have a nice shoulder.
Pedaling America 