Meat, Me and St Louis

Missouri is like the nexus of America. It sits at the dividing line of what Americans consider the east and west, and north and south. I've heard an interesting mix of accents in the different parts of the state in my short time travelling through it. There's an impressive layer of history here enough to lay claim to sophistication, but beneath it still lies the memory of the frontier. 

Despite a lack of sleep from the raucous night in Mokane, I actually did well the next day. After breakfast at the country store, I was back on the trail with a light tailwind. One motivating factor to keep constantly moving was the vicious mosquitoes . As soon as I stopped they would swarm, especially along the swampy parts of the trail. Sometimes the landscape reminded me of rice fields, a flat wide humid valley bordered by high bluffs on either side.

Someone slower than me

People in eastern Missouri are super friendly and I enjoyed chatting with people at every little stop I make. Powered by some great ice cream in Augusta, I got my second wind in the afternoon and ambitiously made it to St Charles, an 88 mile/140km day on unpaved trail which is far more strenuous than riding on paved roads. 

The underbelly of bridges leading into St Louis

I had planned to camp out, but I soon found out that there was no camping in the vicinity of the old town. It was also threatening to rain hard and all the motels and hotels in the are were booked solid. I went into the local bike cafe to ask for advice and they told me my best bet would be a pricy bed and breakfast. With my legs caked in sweat and mud, and the day fast getting old, I decided to pull out my free pass to Buy-Myself-Out-of-Misery™ (my personal expression when I'm in "reward mode") and took an expensive room (for my budget anyway) right in the historic main street of St Charles. One bonus was it was just across from the brew pub, so in for a penny, in for a pound, I lived it up with a dinner of barbecued ribs and a couple of pints.

A bicycle built for seven

A full rack of ribs

Breakfast with the other guests was hearty and lively the next morning at the B&B, and we all chatted around the table about a wealth of subjects. A few people were in a similar bind of being desperate to find accommodation, so I felt somewhat lucky to get the last room in the inn. It had rained hard during the night, and another thundershower came around just as I was about to leave. I went back to the bike cafe to wait out the last of the rain and met two other long distance cyclists.

The Bike Stop Cafe is a meeting place for cyclists doing the Katy Trail and beyond

Getting into the City of St Louis was circuitous and confusing. I followed instructions i found on the web and I did not realize how relatively hilly the metropolitan area is. I was expecting this city in the confluence of two great rivers, to be a well eroded topographically (like Montreal or Winnipeg), but it was quite the contrary.

I had three things I wanted to do in St Louis: 1) Ride around Forest Park, which was the site of the 1904 World's Fair, 2) See the Gateway Arch and 3) have more St Louis Style Barbecued Ribs. I happened upon Forest Park first and went into the Missouri History Museum which had a hall dedicated to the World's Fair. I was a bit hot to fully enjoy the ride around the park but it was easy enough with the bike paths crisscrossing the vast greenspace.

Ribs again, this time a classic St Louis cut

The Gateway Arch was surprisingly the most difficult place to get to since the monument is currently going through a renewal/expansion project and was fenced in except for a single access point. It was crowded with tourists and I did not have the patience to buy tickets to go into the arch itself. It's best appreciated from the outside anyway, and after going around the base and seeing the flood damage on the banks of the Mississippi, I crossed over into East St Louis, Illinois to view the skyline from the other side. It's rather unfortunate that most of the recent buildings are quite ugly compared to the elegance of the 50 year old arch.

The view from East St Louis

East St Louis is a sad looking place, a hollowed out shell of a city that seems to have been abandoned in favour of the fresher suburbs. Its decaying and boarded up buildings look like a set for a post-apocalyptic movie. I had to ride far out into its fringes to find a place that didn't look like I wouldn't be attacked by zombies :)

Sad how a beautiful building could be in such disrepair that trees are growing out of it