Days 7 and 8 - Mark Twain Lakes/Fin

Will has experienced numbness in his hand since our second day of riding, and during our rest day off the bike his symptoms did not improve.  It is very likely that it is Ulnar neuropathy.  I'm sorry to say, with deepest possible disappointment, that we could not continue.

Will and I had a few discussions about his hand in the preceding days, and decided that our rest day at Mark Twain Lakes would be the junction at which we would decide how to proceed.

When we arrived at camp, we were dismayed to find that the "primitive" campsites at Mark Twain Lakes State Park were gravel parking spaces.  Out of 60 or so sites, we were able to find about 3 that had enough grass to pitch a tent, and even so, we had to pitch our tents in the dirt.

We were both extremely restless.  Will sat on a tarp in the shade and read a book and I decided to go off for a ride and explore the surrounding area.  I rode to the "Mark Twain Historical Site," which turned out to be a modern "memorial shrine/museum" that I decided to forego.  Afterwards, I biked into the next town, Florida, MO, Mark Twain's birthplace.  Markers on the road referred to it as "Historic Downtown Florida" so I assumed it would have at least touristy amenities which would be lovely because the two next nearest towns were 10 and 15 miles away.  When I rolled into town, I discovered that there was one house, one permanently situated RV, and several condemned buildings.  Florida has a population of 9 according to the 2000 census.

I really enjoyed stomping up and down the hills between camp and Florida and decided that if Will couldn't continue that I would go on alone.  Somehow the loneliness of riding down sparse country roads eluded me at the time.

On the way back I noticed a bait shack not far from camp.  I decided to stop in and see what they had to eat.  They were surprisingly well-stocked, so I decided we would return there for dinner.

When I rolled into camp, the first thing I said to Will was that if he couldn't continue that I'd go on alone.    As soon as I said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded.  Even together, the loneliness of midday on vacant country roads was strongly felt.  By this time, Will had made his decision.  While I was out, he rode a few hundred feet up the road to speak with the ranger and the tingling and numbness moved from his palm into his fingers.

We rode down to the bait shack and picked up some hot dogs and beer.  While we were in the store, the proprietor's toddler grandchildren ran into the store naked, ran up to a bin of peaches, and the proprietor admonished "Jus' one peach, and eat it outside, ya' hear?"  He was very friendly and cheered us up quite a bit.

We roasted the hotdogs over a small fire, and made short order of the beer.  We stopped back in at the bait shack again later.

The next day we rode back to town and hung around all day.  At some point we had become local celebrities (an experience we were somewhat accustomed to) and strangers came up to us with surprising knowledge of our trip.

Not riding was by far the hardest part of the trip.  Over the last seven days we had grown rather accustomed to riding all day.  The riding and the camping were both becoming progressively easier.  Will started out the trip with sleeping problems, but by day 6 he had fallen asleep face down in his tent in a puddle of mud during a nasty electrical storm.

We both have a strong sense of having some unfinished business out in MO.  I have some vague plans to get back out there soon, but it doesn't seem that any of the possible plans would be the same.  Harry Wray reminded us that he had made his trip at age 35 and that we had many years still ahead of us to do it.  I am going to.

Telling our stories to Will's dad helped remind us how great our week was.  We met some incredible people, saw some incredible places, and developed new perspectives on a great number of things.  I'm greatly disappointed that we weren't able to continue, but don't regret our week on the road in the least!

We rode 400 miles.