Day 15: July 4: Granite City, Il to Arnold, Mo: 35 miles

I woke up last night about 12:30 with Katie kicking my bike hard off her bed. She can't even take one square inch of something touching her precious bed space. (We had no option, but to put our bike in the room with us. This was a small place.) After a few more times of kicking and things flying everywhere, it was time to get up. We had breakfast at a Waffle House, packed up, and then we were off.

Our mission today was to survive St. Louis. We crossed a old bridge called the Chain of Rocks Bridge. It used to be a road, but is now a pedestrian/bicycle bridge. Then, more bike trails. I know bicyclists did not have a say in these trails. A biker would not have designed these trails.

About 12 miles of bike trails, and we made it to downtown St. Louis. It was EXTREMELY busy with 4th of July Celebrations. We saw the arch from a distance, but were not able to go see it. As we got further into town, we were forced off the bike trail because it was closed for the celebrations. We tried to get directions around, but nobody seemed to know what was closed and what was open. We finally found a police officer who told us to follow the parade out of the area because cars could not go through. What a mess! People everywhere! We did finally make it back to the road we needed and progressed slowly through town.

Upon making it through the downtown, we needed help with directions (bike signs had stopped). Chris saw a fire engine just pulling back into the station, so we stopped to ask for assistance. The firefighters were very nice. They offered the use of their bathroom and helped us with directions and getting phone numbers for hotels in the next town. Thanks guys! They even took a picture for us. After all this they walked out and saw our bikes. They were really surprised. One of them said, "I thought you were just riding regular 10 speeds."

As we left the station, the hills began. We have over 500 ft of climbs by the time we reached our hotel. Why do they always put the stoplights at the bottoms of the hills? We found a great hotel, Drury Hotel, in Arnold. They gave us nice rooms and an empty conference room to lock up our bikes.

35 miles (650 miles total)

The night ends with laundry, a short swim, showers, and hopefully sleep very soon! Here is Katie ending the day going crazy in the elevator.

Google Earth File

Comments

Picture of Laura

PLEASE!!!
Have Chris take a picture of you in your bike gear/helmet and bike for me. I would like to make an 8x10 of it and hang it on my Goddaughter wall. That would be awsome.

PEDAL ON GODDAUGHTER PEDAL ON

LOVE YOU,
AUNT DONNA

Hey Chris, FYI.............

The Day 16 blog is missing the "add new comments" link at the bottom. Please add when you can.

We appreciate all the work you put into this website, and know you loose sleep to do it for us. So please continue to do what you can, when you can, but please take care of yourself first.

(After all, who else is gonna keep Roger from eating the worst food on the menus!)

Great blog Laura......

just one question. Did Katie hurt her foot with all that kicking of your bike?

Next time, make her sleep w/ her bike. That would be some serious entertainment.

I saw the Mauston fireworks tonight. They were pretty good as always. I sent a couple of pics to Deb in Iraq. I hope they add a bit of sparkle to her day.

Ride safe. You all look great in the fire station pic.

cool cap

Katie kooks really cool with her skull cap on.

Yeah, her and Katie have

Yeah, her and Katie have black skull caps and seem to be in some form of club. Us white capped people (us 3 guys) just don't look as tough as them. Chuck is considering switching to the black cap.

I just updated yesterdays post.

We were in the parade!

We were in the parade!

Chris must love parades,

He is so excited, he forgot to say where they were in a parade. In St. Louis of all places!!!

They couldn't get to the arch. The bike trail was closed for the July 4th festivities as were many of the roads. Laura blogged very well on this. Any way, they got out of all the crazy traffic by following the parade, BEFORE the roads were reopened to traffic.

Thanks to the police officer who suggested it. I suppose Chris will want to ride in every parade he can find now. Neat. I want pics of every one he's in. Oh the entertainment!!!

Yeah, we struck out at 2 of

Yeah, we struck out at 2 of my big stops for the trip. The Lewis & Clark museum, and the arch. Oh well.

We are still having fun, but riding through the city is hard. The girls are out already. The hills in S. StLouis were quite formidable, and the headwind was rough.

Lewis & Clark Museum & the Arch.....

Maybe we can catch them on another trip, by van. I've been to the Arch w/ Roger & his sister Sandie, but would love to see it again. Also, the Lewis & Clark Museum sounds like fun.

Think positive, we'll get to them w/ you.