Day 24, Napa Valley, Sonoma, Oregon, Washington, the Finger Lakes, and...Missouri?

We started today off on Main Street in St. Charles, MO next to the largest statue of Lewis and Clark in existence. Unfortunately, Lewis (or was it Clark?) was not wearing his signature raccoon tail hat but instead they were joined by their faithful dog, a Great Pyrenees. This was a fitting starting point as we made our way down the Missouri River just like those two old explorers did back in the day. We traveled along the Katy Trail, a rails to trails path beautifully done and kept up. We whizzed along enjoying the much-changed scenery. Instead of dealing with honking cars, we were able to watch people exercising along the trail. Instead of never ending fields, we got to see some more never ending fields BUT also intermingled with river views, cliffs, cranes, jungle-like canopies (shade!!) and the occasional beaver or deer leisurely crossing our path. It was really a nice change of pace to hop along for 70 miles without any cars at all.

We were rewarded for our efforts by winery visits (yes, you read that right) with Priscilla in the town of Hermann. Missouri has wine, you ask? Missouri has pretty decent wine, even! All of the German immigrants to this area in the 1800s compared the fertile soil with that of the Rhine Valley and this region was a top-producing wine region. The region even helped out France in the 1870s by sending over thousands of strong, resistant vineroots when much of France's vines were destroyed by a phylloxera epidemic. We learned such other tidbits of useless information such as the state grape of MO is the Norton grape, which makes a very tasty red wine if we may say so ourselves.

Back to reality tomorrow as our faithful manager and sagwagon driver Priscilla/Mom leaves us-our trailers will be back on our bikes and memories of B&Bs and her smiles in our minds.