Day 61: Roller Coaster Hills!

In many ways, today was a lot like yesterday.  It was reasonably flat in the morning and a little too hilly in the afternoon.  But the scenery was excellent, with many interesting vistas along the way, and the wind was blowing in the right direction most of the time.  A favorite view was the climb up the bluff before Louisiana, MO, but we didn't manage to get a picture of that (often there isn't any place to get off the road to park along these roads).

Yet another Mississippi River vista - this one at Louisiana, MO.

Alea arrives at Louisiana, MO - part of our route has mirrored the historic Little Dixie Highway.

But Louisiana was a nice town, with a lot of riverfront parks and some great views, as shown above.

For her second day of riding in a row, Alea found that a bridge was out on her planned route.  We took a look at where she was being detoured, and it added about another five miles to a day that was expected to be longer than either of us would have liked.

Deja vu all over again - another bridge closure for Alea, this one on Hwy 79.

But just past the detour Alea had a flat tire, so I returned to help sort that out for her:

Think of whistling "Whistle While You Work."  It's hard to say which dwarf I was channeling
at this precise moment, but it isn't always Grumpy when I'm fixing a flat (just most of the time).  ;-)

We did some Googling and found a couple of gravel roads (the road[s] less traveled) that actually shaved a couple of miles off the main route and shortened the detour considerably.  It had plenty of gentle rollers, but with some great views toward the end of the route.

Alea takes the road less traveled (those hills in the background don't show up so well in this picture)....

A restored limestone farmhouse and a great view from the road less traveled.

Made it!  The end of the gravel road detour.

Not long after getting back on route, the roller coaster hills started.  Some were gentle rollers, others were long and steep, with a matching descent.  After about 50 miles in the saddle, Alea was happy to have me take over for the remaining dozen miles or so.  And even for me, on a road bike weighing less than 20 pounds, there were some of those hills that slowed me down to less than 7 mph!  And the Ozarks are worse...

We eventually made it to Cuivre (pronounced like quiver) State Park ($21, power and showers), though Alea relied a bit too much on some local directions and got turned around a bit and had a hard time finding it.  But we eventually got that sorted out and had another pleasant evening together.