Curse of the KATY
By C. Patrick Neagle
"Wait a minute. You want to hike the KATY trail? Didn't we swear blood oaths that we would never set foot on the KATY again?"
My disbelief was natural. The first time my uncle and I had essayed part of 225-mile Missouri rails-to-trails KATY project (once the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railway), we ended up hiking in near-hundred-degree weather, running out of liquids, and hobbling along on blistered feet, our muscles cramping up at every rest stop. The second time we'd stepped onto the trail -- again in near-hundred-degree weather -- our liquids held out longer and our footgear was better, but because of some chemical reaction related to the interaction of limestone, suntan oil, sweat, and poison oak, my calves looked like they'd been dipped in acid. The hair had only just started to grow back after a year and a half.
Now my uncle wanted to do it a third time. Sure, he had promised himself that he'd walk the whole 225 miles, no matter how long it took…but, but, but…blood oath!
"Actually," he said, looking over a map of the trail, "I think you were the only one of us to do any swearing, and that was when you ran out of Gatorade (TM). The blood was from the blisters on your feet because you decided to wear sandals instead of hiking boots."
"Oh…right," I said.
"It's cooler this time of year. Of course, there might be storms. Maybe a tornado."
"Well, we haven't seen a tornado on the KATY yet," I said, relegating myself to my fate since it seemed there'd be no talking him out of his plan. "It would make a refreshing change from heat stroke and trips to the Emergency Room podiatrist."
"That's the spirit!"
So off to the KATY we went. This year, the goal was a modest fifteen-mile stretch between Tebbetts and Portland (Missouri, not Oregon), a section that spent part of its time meandering alongside the Missouri River and the rest of the time meandering alongside Highway 94. We figured we'd spend any spare time we had touring the wineries in Hermann, MO, a popular tourist destination for that sort of thing.
The first section of trail, from Tebbetts to Mokane, was pleasant. The flowering trees still had their Spring-bloom colors, the sky was blue, and the steady breeze kept us cool but not cold. Rain that had threatened the day before had moved on to the East to annoy Georgia and the Coast. For some reason, though, we kept pointing out the shade the trees cast over the trail. A year and a half earlier, we would have sold each other's souls for that much shade.
We came across a few snakes sunning themselves on this or that picturesque bridge, and elsewhere mushroom hunters were out in force, looking for morels that were rumored to be popping up like, well, mushrooms. Motorcycles rumbled by on 94, heading to a motorcycle tour in Hermann.
We'd gotten a late start, so after finishing the four-miles to Mokane, we spent the night at one of the few motels in Hermann not overrun with motorcycle gangs. The next day we finished up the final nine miles, making a trail-eating-but-not-foot-grinding pace of three-miles-per-hour.
If it hadn't been for the body that a mushroom hunter found just off the trail near Mokane, we would have been willing to call the trip an unqualified success -- moderate aches and pains, and no blisters, acid burns or tornado spottings.
Talk in the Riverfront Bar and Grill in Portland, where we stopped for a late lunch, had it that the body was that of a woman who had gone missing a year earlier. They'd found her car abandoned at a boat ramp in Mokane, but they'd never found her. Later, forensic investigators (probably that Grissom fellow and his team from CSI) determined that this woman was someone completely different. Fingerprints didn't match, y'know.
Then, on his way back home, my uncle called me up to tell me that he had just come up on an accident just outside of Mokane. A Doritos (TM) truck had collided with a car. Bags of chips were strewn all over the highway. The driver of the car didn't look like he was going to make it.
Less than five miles from the KATY trail.
Coincidence? Maybe, but next time I'm still going to push for a different hiking venue. I hear mallwalking is good exercise.
The author didn't see any cast members of CSI at the grocery store in Mokane, but they could have been out collecting evidence.
