Urban Chestnut Brewing Company: STLIPA
India Pale Ale at Shelly’s in St Louis, Missouri
Status
Day 22: St Louis
Hanging out at the City Museum today after brunch. What a cool place!
Day 21: Resting out of the Storm
Holed up in St Louis, the weather has been 25mph+ winds, rain, snow, sleet, and a temperature hovering around freezing.
Taking today off and catching up on email and other things. Taking tomorrow off and touring St Louis.
Monday the weather supposed to warm up and I’ll get back on the road towards New Orleans.
Day 20: Ferrying the River
Crossing the Illinois River
Day 20: Frosty
Left Subway last night and Beth, the owner, handed me a bag of cookies; had one for breakfast this morning.
Woke at 6am, Erik (view his website) started the coffee and breakfast… I rolled over and moaned a few times. Everything was damp and frosted.
I’d tried stuffing newspaper in my shoes last night to dry them out, but it didn’t help much.
After breakfast of cous cous, onion, carrots,and scrambled eggs, I packed up and headed back to the laundromat to dry my shoes and warm my hands and feet.
I’m sure I’ve damaged the adhesive on my shoes, but I can reseal them and it was worth removing some of the dampness and all of the cold.
We’ve been passing quilt prints painted or stuck to barns around here. Barb told us that it’s a thing that people travel from around the country to see. They’re pretty neat looking.
Heading to the Brussels free ferry across the Illinois River and then into St Louis to stay with a friend of a friend.
Sunrise on the Illinois River
Day 19: Camping in the Illinois River Valley
Tonight we stopped into the Hardin Drive-In restaurant and asked if we could camp behind the restaurant if we ordered dinner. The employee called the boss and asked and they said yes; so we ordered a pizza for $12.75 and setup on the riverbank just downstream from the historic Hardin bridge. The southern most bridge on the Illinois River.
We had a side wind or a tailwind all day, along with some big hills during our 55 mile ride. Erik topped out at 49mph (beating his earlier speed today of 44mph) coming down the ridge into Hardin at dusk.
Laundry is doing circles at the 24 hour laundromat. This post is being transmitted to the internet at the Hardin Subway.
On to St Louis tomorrow …. 63 miles to go.
Day 18: Grocery Shopping
Those sure look like fluffy moisture heavy clouds to me… But they also insulate and can keep the air warmer. Everything is a tradeoff.
Today’s menu is: ham and cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and rye crackers , and a bottle of cheap wine. … And probably a Clif Bar or two.
Day 16: Rainy Rest day
Just hanging out in my tent today reading a book, eating peanut butter,and resting. The rain started coming down just before 5am. I started dreaming about being inside my grandparents house while it rained and then I woke and realized it really was raining. I checked on the bike and all the gear. Everything seems good. So here I lay with my laundry drying above me until the rain slows. I’ll probably go into town today and pick up some more food in case I’m stuck here tomorrow too.
Day 15: Heading Out
To attempt to be more frequent and fluid with updates I’m going to start publishing status updates in addition to the full blog posts I’ve been working on.
Today the sun is shining, it’s 50F, and I’m heading South about 55 miles from Warsaw Illinois to Hannibal Missouri.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to storm so I’m going to take the day off and rest up my sore knee in Hannibal.
I am also going to repack the bike and ship a bunch of stuff back to Minnesota that I’m not using so I can move a bit faster during the day.