Hartsburg,
Missouri is a town of 105 souls located 10.5 miles west of Jefferson City via
the Katy Trail. Each October
approximately 50,000 people make their way to Hartsburg for the annual Pumpkin
Festival. But most days you are more likely to meet the “Town Beagle” making
his rounds than you are an actual Hartsburg resident.
Friday morning
was an exception.
Bikes
loaded, my friend Tom & I headed for the North Jefferson trailhead on the
Katy Trail, just across the Missouri River from Jefferson City. By 9 am we were pedaling west.
It was a
rare August day. The temperature was 59
degrees as I got in my truck to pick up Tom.
The sun was shining brightly, but the high for the day was only expected
to be 75. Take that, San Diego!
The ride to
Hartsburg was uneventful. No snakes, and
the eagles must have been sleeping in.
The air was fresh with little humidity.
It felt like we were riding in a perfectly climate-controlled environment. In Missouri,
in August, that’s unusual.
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| Catrike Recumbent Bike |
While
resting at Hartsburg, Tom found a Facebook post from some friends of his who
are in the U.S. on a 4-year work visa from Ukraine. That was the good news. The bad news is that the post was written in
Ukrainian. “I think Google can interpret
that for you” I suggested. Maybe later.
Mounting up, we took a quick tour of Hartsburg and then headed back
toward the truck.
Four miles
west of Jefferson City is one of my favorite spots on the Katy Trail. It’s shaded, has a picnic table, two benches
in memory of former Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan who died in a plane crash,
and a beautiful view overlooking the Missouri River. It is also a great place to meet people and
swap stories from the trail.
As we neared
the rest area, I could see a couple of bikes parked beside the trail. As Tom & I arrived, we saw two ladies
standing beside the steep bank that drops 15 feet to the river. It was a mother and daughter from Hartsburg. The mom owns the Eber Haus B & B in
Hartsburg and the daughter works in Washington, D.C. and was in for a visit.
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| New Friends Alyona and Sarah |
In the course of our conversation, we
discovered the daughter is fluent in Ukrainian.
So much for needing Google to translate the Facebook post of Tom’s
friends. Taking Tom’s phone, the
daughter summarized the gist of the post.
“The war goes on. How is so and
so. Did you ever do such and such?” etc. etc.
Not nearly as dramatic as it
looked written in Ukrainian.
After that,
our topics of conversation ranged from snakes to mosquitos to spiders to the
risk of a B&B guest unwittingly leaving a starter batch of bedbugs behind
after a stay, a genuine concern for any hotel, motel or B & B no matter how
fancy or expensive.
“I’ve
researched the subject of bedbugs” said the mom. “The temperature has to get to 140 degrees to
kill them.” That’s a pretty hazardous
endeavor in a vintage home. “But”, she
continued, “there is a spider in the Ukraine whose diet includes bedbugs!”
When I got
home, I researched it. The spider is the
Thanatus Flavidus, and I’m sure it is friendlier than it looks. In 2014 there was actually a petition to the
White House to import the spider, which one proponent described as “adorable
and harmless”, to help rid the U.S. of bedbugs.
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| Thanatus Flavidus - Harmless, Adorable, and Like Bedbug Buffets |
Question: if
you were in a motel, would you rather find dozens of bedbugs under your pillow
or a single “adorable & harmless” spider on the wall? My inclination is to go with the spider but my
wife’s inclination is to just go – and fast.
Ah, the Katy
Trail.
Exercise
your body AND your mind.
And maybe
even get a Facebook post in Ukrainian translated into English along the way.
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