A day on the Katy Trail

Then the moment I had been avoiding arrived. It was time to start pedaling. Nine miles later, I was just hitting my stride when I rolled through Clifton City. This frontier outpost once was called Devil's Half Acre, a historic marker tells me. The town grocer sold whiskey, which helped fuel local skirmishes. Today a corner gas station stocks bottled water. I tried to imagine the skirmishes as I cycled by, serenaded by a chorus of cows, locusts, birds and the gentle crackle of crushed limestone from beneath my bike wheels.

Then I was distracted by a cloud of Monarch butterflies. A few miles later, I noticed how fields of soybeans glow in the afternoon light.

So goes a day on the Katy.