114 miles today and we earned it all... Started in the cold fog biking the Mark Twain Wilderness of the Ozarks - basically hilly, winding oak forest as far as you could see (which wasn't very far, due to the oaks) - very pretty though! The hills really took it out of me today - got to lunch at Lake Wappapello which is a reservoir held by a huge earthen dam - also very pretty though! After lunch got to the point about 80 miles where I was just about ready to throw my bike off the nearest bridge and Uber to Starbucks (two problems - no Uber, no Starbucks) due to the unrelenting climbs when we descended a hill and suddenly the land was pancake flat with cotton fields everywhere. A moderate headwind was a fine trade for no hills...
Sikeston was named for John Sikes, who founded it in 1860 in anticipation of the rail line coming through. The area had been inhabited for some time prior though suffered significant damage during the New Madrid earthquakes (some 2000 over 1811-1812). The area around Sikeston was swampy and in the early 1900s a major land reclamation effort occurred to convert it to agriculture - with more dirt moved than in the making of the Panama Canal. The whole area is historic flood plain but a series of dikes now protects the local cities. Skillet chocolate chip cookie at Ruby Tuesday was awesome! Our last night in Missouri - tomorrow we cross into Kentucky!
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| Springhouses protect the spring from contamination and also helped to cool food before refrigerators |
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| Just another biker in Possum Hollow, MO |
Wow , neat shots of cotton field . Had no idea it was a row crop or that it was raised commercially in Missouri . As I try to conjure up photos of cotton fields I've
ReplyDeleteseen in the past all that I find ae black and white shots of slaves or former slaves picking cotton by hand .
The spring house takes me back to my youth , visiting farms in central Illinois . Not sure I have ever seen a photo of a spring house .
JFH