In a past life, I was an elevator salesman. My position had a fair amount of customer contact, and it seems that every week I’d meet someone who’d tell me the old joke: “Elevator salesman, eh? That job must have its’ ups and downs.” That seems to be the theme for this busy week.

Normally I’d choose to write about positive events only, yet these past several days have delivered an interesting combination of events that I’d like to share with you.

Mother Nature has dealt quite a blow to the middle of the country. A cool and wet spring has contributed to very high river levels. The Missouri River is beyond flood stage, and will remain high for weeks. The flooding is causing serious property and crop damage across the region. At this time over 100 miles of the 230 mile Katy Trail is under water. I received this update about 10 a.m. on June 3. It was immediately obvious that I had to cancel our Katy Trail Tour the week of June 16.

One of the advantages of being a small business is the ability to act quickly. I notified our guests before noon, and sent 100% of the refunds by 2 p.m. There is no joy in cancelling a tour or making refunds, however guest safety was our first and only concern here.

I do want to mention that our lodging partners took this cancellation without issue. This includes the  Hotel Bothwell in Sedalia,  Hotel Frederick in Booneville, Best Western Plus in Jefferson City,   Old Dutch Hotel in Washington, and  Country Inn and Suites   in St. Charles. Special thanks are in order for the  Harbor Haus in Hermann, who returned 100% of our non-refundable deposit. We’ll return to the Katy Trail in the future.

Forty four guests came out June 1 & 2 to play on the Kal-Haven Trail, our biggest tour ever! Cyclists from Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin turned out for fun. The good news is that we started and ended with perfect weather, with some liquid sunshine in the middle. There’s a reason we label our tours ‘rain or shine’, and recommend carrying a rain jacket.

Thirty of our 44 guests set personal records for distance on this tour. All 44 guests learned about perseverance on Saturday, plus a little about washing the dirt off your bike!

We do our best to plan for safety for guests and their equipment. As part of the permitting process, I told the State Park how many cars we would have overnight at the trail head in Kalamazoo. They sent this information on to the local sheriff. Unfortunately some vandals broke into two of our guest vehicles. This is the first time in 9 years that we’ve experienced any sort of vandalism while on tour.

We’re already in talks with the State Park, and with the Kalamazoo Visitor’s Bureau, on how to safeguard against this in the future. The correct answer will involve a review of police reports from the parking lot (to determine if this is a common event), and possibly the option of a different starting point at a secure parking lot.

Absent the Katy Trail, our busy tour season starts on June 23 in Traverse City. We’re a little staff-heavy on most tours, so the Tour Chief gets to bike a few more miles this summer. It will be a busy season, since we already have 25% more customers vs. any prior year. We have 4 fresh faces on our staff. For the first time ever, several guests are going back-to-back on tours!

I’ll try to keep the blog and interview program up this summer, but my first focus will be on our tours. As always, your comments and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for reading!

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