Day Two: St Louis–great cycling, neat town
We visited my sis and bro-in-law and their kids the next day. Man, the kids just hit it off. Max interaction the moment their feet hit the ground. Very cute. It was great to see the grown-ups, too. We hadn’t been to their place yet in a very wooded, very hilly part of the STL area: about 20 miles west of the city in an area called Wildwood.
I had to get out the kinks from driving and took a bike ride. It was a neat change of pace from our local mid-Michigan flatland. It was either a 40mph plummet or a first-gear climb. Riding here for awhile would give one as good a chance as any to turn into the next Armstrong. I explored their neighborhood, then headed out on the local roads. They were lovely, twisty, hilly. I could really keep my momentum flying. It was neat to ride somewhere where I had to actually do sporty handling to deal with the curves and change gears on the fly. A couple racer-dudes passed going the other way. Then a few more. I turned around at the end of a valley and started heading back. We were having dinner in an hour. On a fast downhill a group of racer guys suddenly flashed past me. Hey, what is this? I couldn’t resist. I joined in. I’d never seen so many fast riders strung out on such a narrow, twisting, hilly country road. We’d fly around a corner then drop down into a river and rumble across a one-lane bridge and attack up the hill leaving the valley. I worried about the cars. A huge, new pickup came blasting up to us at one point and I cringed. These riders were often taking up a good bit of the road. But the truck just waited amidst us until it could squeeze past. That’s how all the cars were. It was great not to have any homicidal vehicle encounters like we get so often in Michigan where the roads are wide and open.
I finally realized it was close to dinner and I was a long way from home. I managed to gasp to a guy near me at an intersection “Does this road to the left go back to Wildwood?” The group was jumping and he just drooled back at me incoherently. I was tapped out myself and just turned around and retraced our route. Dinner was served.
My bro-in-law had an older red Miata and I took the kids for a drive in it. It was a great car for those roads and that hot weather. The kids fell asleep instantly. He said it wasn’t really a sports car, though. I gather that it’s light and lively but that it could handle better for roads like these. Seemed fine to me! The boys were going ape the whole time over snakes, lizards and frogs (“It’s lost! It’s lost in the house!”). The girls fussed over doll families. John and I checked out the mini-planned community nearby that’s finally starting to thrive. It’s a small-town America revival project by the Seaside, FL, people. A little ways away we have a beer at the Big Chief, an 80-year-old motor lodge that has an original skin painting by a chief who was at the Battle of Little Big Horn. It used to be an entire Spanish villa style complex with mission tower, etc. Turns out we’re on a stretch of the original Route 66. Big Chief was a major watering hole.
We had a fine visit with our energetic, generous relatives. Then we got rolling again. Two days into it and we’re starting to feel the immensity of the trip we’re proposing and feel pressure to keep moving.
