June 20, 2007 Starting the Adventure (2)

The plan was to take the train and a shuttle to the trailhead in Clinton Mo. and ride to the end of the trail in St. Charles Mo. and meet our wives for dinner. We left the Kirkwood Mo. Amtrak station at 4:59 P.M.; the train was coming from St. Louis and was right on time. We loaded our bikes and gear on the train and were given a kiss good by by Karen and Mary our lovely and understanding wives. The train headed west and went through Washington, Herman, Jefferson City and finally on to Sedalia Mo. This is the first time I have ridden on a train since I was a Cub Scout. I was very impressed! The train was very clean, roomy, quiet, the personnel were very helpful and friendly, and it had a snack bar with cold beer. The scenery was great; we were seeing a side of the country that you don't see from the interstate highway. On thing we noticed was that the train whistle was blowing almost all of the time. We asked the conductor about this and he said that they blow it at all of the crossings for safety reasons. He told us that he didn't want to hit a person at a crossing because it would mean a loss of at least four hours. I guess not to mention cleaning up the train.