Breakfast and worship with fellow Christians Apr 28 and motel cats

Cuivre River State Park to Louisiana, MO Sunday, April  28 
  Hooray!  No rain or thunderstorms during the night!  We stayed dry!
  With today being Sunday, we had looked ahead of time for a church along or near our route that we could get to in a timely fashion and we discovered New Hope Baptist Church 11 miles from the park right on the route. We calculated what time we would need to leave to get there on time plus allowing for a strong headwind or a flat tire, so decided to set an alarm.  But we got to bed a little after 9 so woke up before the alarm went off, ate, packed up, and were on the road a litte after 8.  Unbeknown to us, the church has a breakfast on the 4th Sunday of the month and we got there in time for the breakfast, Sunday School and the church service.  We felt very welcomed and besides being fed, we were even given church shirts. We appreciated Pastor Steve's message about reaching out to others who are different from us or who have life styles that are foreign to us or do not seem to be the best in our opinion.  We enjoyed chatting with people and talked with someone who lived in Saugatuck and went to Holland schools over 60 years ago. 
  We pedaled through some beautiful rolling countryside with a number of beef cattle grazing on the hillsides.  At Clarksville we started to parallel the Mississippi and it was fun to look out at the mass of muddy water flowing by.   
  Today we stayed dry in spite of predictions of possible rain at various times during the day, and threatening clouds at times. 
  With scant options for camping and some heavy weather predicted tonight, we are staying at the Rivers Edge Motel in Louisiana, MO.  The name is accurate--the parking lot and side yard look down on the river.  The friendly motel owner has a number of cats that he feeds regularly; in fact when he purchased the motel 5 years ago he had to agree to keep the motel cat as a condition of the sale and he has since added more.   
For dinner, we went to a small sports bar that was conveniently located a few steps away from the motel. We had on our shirts from New Hope Baptist and realized we were doing what Pastor Steve had talked about.  We enjoyed  chatting with some local persons there.  Then had a really great time talking with another person who enjoys mountain biking and has led an amazing life working for Homeland Security which included working with airports in western Africa for 5 years.  We talked for a long time, and could have continued for a lot longer!

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