We found a straight forward route to get out of St. Louis. It was through an area that was not "touristy", yet we were extremely impressed how clean the streets were. We crossed the Missouri River just before rolling into St Charles.
St. Charles is a wonderful town, friendly to cyclists. We had to stop here... Bike Stop Cafe.
Not only is the shop a full service bike shop, it is also is a cafe that makes great breakfast wraps.
Today's ride had it's pros and cons. Pros: cooler temperatures, beautiful scenery, rolling hills, no rain, nor storms, plenty of places to stop and replenish.
Cons: the entire 79 mile ride included side winds or, more commonly, headwinds.
We were totally beat when we arrived at the lovely Inn. Accompanying the inn was a fabulous restaurant. What a treat and reward for our long day in the saddle.
It was great getting a full night sleep and know that there would be no alarm this morning. Yay!
A tour of St. Louis was first on the agenda. We waited on the hot trolly for 10 minutes until departure time. Just before it was time to go, the driver/tour guide turned on the bus to cool it down, and soon something in the engine started smoking... and the smoke billowed inside. It was like a comedy of errors at that point. Everyone stayed on the trolly bus stayed inside and two guys with the tour group brought out a waste can filled with water, then an empty plastic cup, then pulled over a hose. 15 minutes later they tried to start the engine again.... unsuccessfully.
We went to the second item on our agenda. Found the Metro station, took it to Forest Park, and found the golf course there.
We really enjoyed the beautiful golf course and the weather was perfect.
Nearby we noticed the St. Louis Science Center hosting the Body Worlds and the Brain exhibit. It was fascinating and a little gross. Our day off in St. Louis was full and fun. Both of us were very impressed with the beauty and cleanliness of the city.
The lush potted plants are hanging from every lightpost and all along all the streets.
It's wonderful how flawlessly it blends the fabulous old architecture with the more modern structures.
We would be happy to revisit this great city some day.
We were up early, continental breakfast opened at 5:00. Based on the previous nights forecast, we thought our only hope to get to St. Louis, without threat of thunder storms, was to get a very early start. We were wrong! We were ready to depart by 6:00, but stayed in the lobby until 6:30 to let the heavy rain pass. We took off in a light rain... within 25 minutes the rain was coming down hard again. We decided to run for cover to a pole barn on the side of the road. We debated returning to Ste Genevieve or trying to make it to Festus (halfway to St Louis). We decided to wait out to storm, watching the lightning strikes that were so close we became really worried. About 45 minutes later we decided to push forward. BRILLIANT decision! The ride was hilly and cool, but did not include storms. When we arrived in Bloomsdale, a very friendly dog greeted us.
That friendly black dog followed us down the road for the next 2 miles, but it was very mannerly. The roads were really nice, and the weather was working out well.
We got to Festus and decided we could make it all the way to St. Louis without storm threat. We finally road into the city limits of St. Louis in the early afternoon, riding on well marked bike routes,
past the Anheuser Busch plant, as well as some awesome old brick homes and buildings.
After cleaning up and grabbing a drink and snack, Tim and I made it to the Gateway Arch. 4:00 pm must be the perfect time to arrive... no waiting for tickets, to get on the tram to the top of the arch, nor for the documentary movie on building of this amazing arch.
We considered going on a riverboat cruise, but the Mississippi waters are way too high so everything was closed on the river until the waters receed.
We continued to check out the downtown area of St Louis, enjoying a great brewery in the old riverfront section of the city.
After all the worry, the day ended up being beautiful...the cloudy sunset was also spectacular.
Our classroom bedroom at Davies schoolhouse B&B was wonderful, but the very large (curtained) windows let in all the early morning light. So we were up early and packed. Our 7:00 breakfast was fantastic. We loaded up and hit the road around 8:00.
We needed to stop at a bike shop to repair some items and were told that Carbondale had 3 bike shops! The journey there was great; beautiful rolling hills, smooth roads, and once again -tailwinds!
While waiting for the bike shops to open we sipped coffee and chatted with a gal who was very familiar with bicycle touring.
Tracy gave us some great suggestions further north in IL. The bike shop had what we needed, but it took about an hour of time. (I suppose it was time well spent.) We continued on, the terrain got more hilly, the temperatures increased, the humidity seems to intensify, but the scenery was tranquil and beautiful.
The ride to Chester got a little challenging because all the 18 wheelers had to use the same 2 lane road due to their detour. Chester is home to Popeye.
While we were devouring a fast food lunch, a gentleman named Jack saw us come in on our bikes and started conversation with us. He ended up suggesting that he follow us over the bridge, which is a busy 2 lane bridge with no shoulder, with his flashers on, keeping us safe. Back in Missouri, we came upon more hills, but a lot less traffic. Tim took time to check out the knee-high corn.
The road to Ste. Genevieve seemed endless, we finally pulled into the French Colonial town around 4:30. We got word from the ladies at the visitor center that there was one shop that was doing local wine tasting until 5:00. Even though we got to the shop at a quarter 'til 5:00, Brenda was so friendly and thoughtful. She kept pulling out local wines for us to try.
All those challenging miles were forgotten as we sipped the sweet wines of the region. Our hotel was a few miles up the road, fortunately there was a restaurant right next door, thank goodness!
Happy Father's Day to my Dad and all the dad's reading this post. Severe thunder and lightening became our alarm clock just before 5:20. It truly was spectacular, especially from the comfort of bed. Checking out the weather on TV is a morning ritual.... and it didn't look good.
We started late today to avoid the storms, but we still ran into some light showers. The country roads we took today were beautiful, and reasonably quiet.
We road a bit over 40 miles to get to the town of Cape Girardeau, right on the Mississippi River. Cool historic town with some incredible murals of old and new.
We explored the town for a couple hours, had lunch and avoided the final shower of the day.
The bridge crossing the Mississippi River was spectacular.
It was nice to have such light traffic.
We crossed the stateline halfway across the river and more than half way into our ride.
Once over the bridge we saw so much flooding devistation.
The flooding was so extensive that we had to change our route when our road was submerged.
Tonight we are staying at a wonderful old schoolhouse.
Sunday's in this dry town means there is little open. The "headmaster" suggested a great restaurant just out side town where we could get a great meal a real drink. He thought it might be a mile and a half. The walk seemed longer than that to us ... through town, along a stretch of railroad track and down a forested road.
Thank goodness it was totally worth it. I was so tired by the time we returned to our schoolhouse abode for the night.
Once again, the forecast looked threatening so we decided to take the shortest possible route (77miles) to Sikeston. The stateline was only 6 miles from our start.
The next 20 miles to the visitor center was extremely easy riding with perfect tailwinds, but the humidity was intense.
We kept a lookout for dangerous weather and noticed that we were approaching some dark, ominous clouds.
About 50 miles into the ride things began to take a turn for the worse. I got a flat, then within a mile Tim also got one and at the same time the black clouds were directly overhead. We saw a covered structure off the roadway and decided we needed to run for cover.
The rain started to come in buckets, but we found a place to stay dry. We spent the majority of the 2+ hours watching the lightening show and listening to the rumble of thunder and the sounds of the "cats and dogs" land on the tin roof while trying to stay warm. The rest of the time was spent repairing the two flat tires next to the convenient porta-pottie.
We were back on the road almost two and a half hours later, but still got saturated during the 3 mile journey to the nearest town. After lunch we got back on our bike without the threat of more storms. The final 27 miles were without incident. The big event this afternoon was signing up for, waiting patiently and eating dinner at Lambert's Cafe, the only home of throwed rolls.
They don't take reservations, so we put in our name and got our number and told the wait was 2 hours.
They were calling number 238 when we arrived! While waiting, we met a friendly couple from Texas (their number was 345). After an hour and a half of conversation, #345 was called and we were invited to join Paul and Linda. The place was huge, the food delicious and abundant and the hot rolls were tossed, and sometimes thrown to anyone with their hand up.
The sunset on the walk home would have to be our dessert because we were stuffed silly.
