Days 25 and 26, MO Wine-fueled century, and beer-fueled rest day

From the comfort of a real bed and fueled by Oreos, we finally have amassed enough energy from the rest day to post for the past two days.

Yesterday Molly and Stephanie rocked (even we ourselves recognize this) by bicycling 101 miles! The first 40 were on the Katy Trail again, which we learned was named for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, or MKT for short and shortened even further to KT. We took turns performing the rather unusual task of leading in order to combat spider webs that had sprung up overnight. Nothing can quite explain the feeling of a spider web completely covering your face, especially when you're not sure where the owner of the web actually IS. Right before Jefferson City, we walked our bikes over a highway bridge onto oncoming traffic (the only way to have a shoulder) and once we survived that, we entered into the Missouri that is completely baffled by the existence of bicycles. To be fair, in Jefferson City we did meet one of the men that helps run the Tour of Missouri (George Hincapie's foaming mouth and face are plastered on posters advertising the upcoming event) but most people are rather surprised to see cyclists. One woman even asked us why we weren't biking on the highway, because wouldn't that be less dangerous? Clearly she has never experienced the pure terror of being in the air rush of a semi barreling down mere feet from you at 70 mph.

Several rolling hills later, we arrived at the Lake of the Ozarks and a magical place appeared before our eyes--a relatively inexpensive hotel, with an indoor and outdoor pool, a hot tub, and the best part of all, a DENNYS. We impressively downed a serious quantity of breakfast food for dinner. There might have been on our table two large chocolate milks, six large pancakes, bacon, sausage, english muffins, biscuits, eggs overeasy, hash browns, and enough syrup and butter for it all to be doused in. 101 miles!!! Our tummies deserved it.

Today at any given point in the day, we were either sitting by the pool, or lying in bed watching TV. We did make one shopping excursion on our bikes in our street clothes (read: skirts). In a mere three minutes, we got four separate honks, one whistle, and one 'all right baby!' We evidently are popular here although perhaps will refrain from wearing the miniskirts on the bike again.

We've eliminated some more weight by cutting out the tags from our clothing. With rested legs and a whole 2 ounces less weight, we'll fly on the bikes tomorrow!