Into Missouri and Kate's First Sermon:

Who would have thought that there's a two-hundred and twenty-five mile bike trail running through the middle of America? It's called the Katy Trail, and runs east-west through Missouri along what used to be railroad tracks. There is a freckling of little towns along the Katy trail, most of which seem in varying states of decrepitude and historification. Many were first river towns before a major flood re-routed the Missouri and the railroad came in giving new life to these majestic rural communities. The railroad service stopped in this area in 1986, plans for the trail began shortly after.

On our first day in Missouri we rode west into the headwinds that nearly stopped us in our tracks. The day before on our way to meet our lunch-date at the Lone-Star Steak House, (these men had seen us two days in a row in two different towns and asked us out for lunch West of where we saw them,) we had timed ourselves at 19 mph, but this wind brought us back to maybe 5 mph. We hadn't had breakfast and were expecting an easy 15 mile ride before meeting the head of the trail, but an easy 15 miles turned into a blusterily-tedious 30-plus miles before breakfast. By the time we got to St. Charles we were exhausted and hungry. We ate a full meal, took a nap, played music on the grass and had cannoli and espresso at a little Sicilian bakery in St. Charles before jumping on the trail. We rode beside the river for a while before snaking into a canopy of black walnut, burr oak and long, sturdy vines draping over the limbs of smaller trees. The ride was a nice change from the highways that had brought us from Louisville to the outskirts of St. Louis.

We have been riding since Evansville, IN with a broken camera. We got rained on and somehow, despite the Ziploc bags, it got wet. So bear with our wordy posts while we search for a replacement.

Every place we've been since Virginia the rivers have been low, algae ridden or totally dry, and the city water as a result tastes like algae or sulfur. We met a real nice guy, Dion Peek, who let us sleep in his antique shop, all creaky and dusty and incredibly comfortable, rode a bit the next morning to find breakfast and were turned away from the only place open in town. Stopped outside of a house with a sign that said "Think Peace" to adjust Emilie's tire, and were offered a breakfast of homegrown eggs and whole grain toast. Mmmm. (We'll talk more about that in the Think Peace post). A little later we got our fifth flat tire of the trip and met some nice people who took our picture, and convinced us to spend the night in Herman where we celebrated our almost half-way across the USA, over a glass of wine and some Schnitzel.

Not in Missouri, at least not along the Katy Trail, but everywhere before it seems like people like to burn their trash as much as they like to make biscuits. Seems like every ten miles I smell one or the other, biscuits, trash, biscuits...

Being on the road you have a lot of time to think. I would say that more than anything I think about my country. I think about how dissatisfied I am with the connection between people and their government, and how I want to see that change. The people of this country are as good and generous and kind as it gets, but the government of this country is as aggressive and power-hungry as it gets. I am riding along through this fantastic landscape and thinking to myself, what happened? When did America become a power-hungry, fear infested nation? When did CEO's and the Military become the leaders of our nation? Why has privatization been allowed to transform this generous nation into a wealth-building corporation? We can look back at the transformation- the rape of the land and native people, the settlement of Europeans and the development of Democracy- a great idea with bloody hands shaking guiltless at the signings- the unbridled development of capitalism, the creation of American billionaires and the eventual change. It's quite clear how our country has come to a place of paranoid preemptive terrorism. But we stand at an intersection with two clear paths before us. We can continue, as citizens of this nation, to let the machine of destructive militarism to search and conquer until we are hated and feared by all the nations that were once our allies, or we can create change, massive restructuring of the goals of our government. We can stand-up and refuse this war-hungry administration. I personally accept that I have not done my part in the cause of peace. I have not gone to the marches on Washington, I have not written letters to the president. I have not put aside my personal desire for comfort and safety in order to stand up for what I know is absolutely right.

I want to make this world a less violent place. I want to make this country an admirable place again. It is important to vote. It's important to vote for what you BELIEVE in. We met a man in the bakery in Herman, MO who had fought in the Korean war. He was talking about the newspaper and the History Channel and how the History Channel tells the story as it actually happened, and the newspaper is just politics. He said he was ready for a Third Party. I think that I'm ready for the abolition of the party system. I'm ready to see people declassified, government for the people by the people. Officials who run for the ideas that they stand for, not for a Democratic or Republican modification of such. I'm sick of appeasement. Everyone so eager to please, to feed the cycle. I don't want to see the first woman president of the USA doing the same crooked shit that everyone before her has done. Enough with politics! Can we get our priorities straight? Our country is in a state of financial and spiritual crisis. We don't need God, and we don't need War and we don't need Propaganda and we don't need Credit. What we need is Community. We need each other. We need to restructure our resources. We need to keep our taxes in our homeland and stop paying people to kill other people in countries across the ocean.

In short...we need to stop our government from aggressive actions.
We need to follow our hearts and do what we FEEL is right.
We need to take responsibility for our Nation and the people who run it in our name.
We need to reclaim America and save it from the falls of empire.