The Road to St. Louis

So while Anna and I made the most of our one night in Cape Girardeau Missouri taking our inner tubes for a dip in the pool and feasting on Mexican, we also met some locals who warned us off our planned route up to St Louis through the mountains due to dangerous road conditions.

 We took their advice and on Sunday the 20th we headed north on the 61 to St Louis, which is actually part of the Mississippi River Trail bike route. It was a blazing hot and we ended you stopping just 40 miles or so up the road at Perryville MO, enjoying lunch at the City Tavern and bunking down for the night at the camp grounds. That night we saw our first night of continuous rain. 

Lucky for us, the next morning was overcast but reasonably rain-free; perfect riding conditions. We stopped in beautiful little Ste. Genevieve MO on the Mississippi for a morning snack. We pushed on and made it about 70 miles to Festus MO. Worried about the looming rain predicted for the night we weren't to keen on pitching our tents in the park so lucky for us we ran into Jim who offered to host us at his place. A dry night inside and a warm shower was just what the doctor ordered after a day of wet cycling. 

In the morning we bid farewell to our hosts and began our 35 mile ride into down town St Louis.As we got closer to downtown the bike friendliness of St Louis became more and more apparent, with bike lanes aplenty and "bikes may use full lane" signs. Needless to say I was in Heaven :) Hello Midwest !!! We have arrived.