WOO HOO. A day off tomorrow. It has been a brutally hot week but last night the skies opens up and the temp never got above 85 degrees today. For the first time in three weeks, it was a great day for a ride. We left fairly early, unfortunately another hotel breakfast with no protein. No eggs at breakfast can be felt three hours down the road. It was only forty miles until we began riding into St Louis suburbs. We stopped for a great lunch with a menu that included something beyond BBQ and burgers. Salad and chicken felt really good. We entered town following the Acventure Cycling maps. The Route 66 map set has too often kept us on dangerous byways rather than keeping the cyclists safety a priority. It would be a great as a motorcycle or automobile route, but it has not always been so well conceived a route for bicycles. After stopping for coffee and speaking with the barista we decided to follow a Google bike route. It was an immediate improvement. The man behind the espresso machine told us about his mother being hit on her bike on the very stretch we were riding. Chandler experienced motorists slowing their car or truck, rolling down their window, moving closer to her and yelling obscenities. I mentioned this in a post yesterday but I feel compelled to include in this journal my belief that Missouri is as unfriendly to cyclists as Florida. We ride into Forest Park and as we came closer to the city center motorists became more friendly and deferential. That says something for city dwellers. It was twenty one miles from the edge of town to downtown. Thus is a very spread out city. We rode to our hotel at the gateway arch on the river and received a warm welcome.
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