Last evening the Dogtown Historical Society sponsored a presentation on the history of the St. Louis Zoo and those of us who attended were rewarded with a nice evening and learned a lot, at least I did.
Afterward, under a very bright full moon, four of us repaired to my front porch for a chat and a bit of Irish whiskey and pecans. The intended short visit ended up going into gently into the early morning and was a great time. A couple of the visitors were a bit taken aback when a very large and menacing looking possum came strolling out of my back yard, looking up at the porch in wonder. You can’t blame him. He’s (or she) used to being fed by me, or at least eating the remainder of cat food and other scraps I leave for the local feral cats.
It was a bit funny since the possum looked at us like we were just where we didn’t belong and so he or she ambled across the street going elsewhere to look for the evening’s meal.
This morning I went up to Cairdeas and ran into my brother John there, and quite a group of folks at the morning gathering. Even my oldest son, Bob, stopped by for coffee on his way to his office.
I came home about 10 AM but just wasn’t getting much work done, so I decided to get my bike ride in and relax at bit. It was very warm already by 11 AM and I didn’t want any more sun on my forearms, so I wore my long-sleeved white cotton Dogtown Historical Society tee-shirt. Reflects the sun, protects the arms, but isn’t heavy. I also wore my huge straw hat, looking like farmer Jones himself. The hat always draws some surprised stares on the bike trail.
Mondays are typically very quiet in the park. Relatively few folks out; some sun bathing in that warm sun, stripped down to the bare pool-wear. But not many bikers, walkers, joggers and such. Not even many folks on the golf courses. The park crews were out in force as on every other Monday, cleaning up from the heavy traffic of the weekend.
I spent a long time on the “highlands” today, up around the baseball fields, the Jewel Box, Triple A and the back parking lot of the Muny, just looking around, doubling back and such. Most of you know there is a large fountain in the Jewel Box garden, and they have finally planted the summer flowers around that fountain, so the garden is taking on color again. The baseball fields, both the set along Hwy 40 and those over by the Muny were utterly vacant, not even a lone kite-flier today though the weather was good for kite flying.
Not even lots of critters were out. A few ducks, but most were somewhere laying low. On this bright sunny warm day I would have predicted many turtles on the logs, and there were only about 4-5, about 1/3 rd what I would have expected. Where were all the critters? I have no idea.
I noted the miles building up on my odometer. 6 miles came up and I was still up on the top, not dropping down to the wet lands until the middle of my 7th mile. As you know I try to ride 15 miles a day. Several times people have asked me if my odometer is accurate. Well, I’m not fully sure about that, but I am very certain that it is at least CONSISTENT, and that consistency measures very closely to what I know from having driven some of these routes in a car.
Every time I ride down on South Grand to shop at J Asia grocery I take the same route and it is always 5.2 miles, and along that route, always 2.4 miles from my house to Viviano’s on the Hill. It’s always 5.1 miles from my house to St. Louis University, and coming home from the park is the most consistent of all. I always plan to arrive at the junction of two bike trails: the one along Lindell, and the one coming from the Visitor’s Center, just when my odometer is at 12.2 miles. I then ride down Lindell to Skinker, up to Hi-Pointe, down Clayton Ave. to Tamm and down Tamm to my house.
I’ve done that more than 100 times, and it is always exactly 2.8 to 2.9 miles, me arriving home at almost exactly 15 miles on the odometer.
So, accurate, I’m not fully sure. Consistent I am sure.
And that’s the way it went today. I arrived at the junction of the trails today at 9.4 miles, so I headed back south on the trail toward the wet lands for .8 a mile, turned around and came back, crossing over that junction of the trails just as the odometer recorded 12.2 and I headed home. As I came up my lawn the odometer slipped over to 15.0 miles on the nose.
It was a lovely ride. Quiet, the park nearly my own. Sometime I like the hustle bustle of the all the people in the week-end park, sometime I like the quiet of days like today’s Monday. This was one of those days; I wanted thinking time, time alone with my thoughts, wanting to get myself up for a busy week of working on the computer getting some new things on my web page.
Nice way to start a week.
BACK TO THE LIST OF PARK JOURNALS
| HOME | DOGTOWN |
| Bibliography | Oral history | Recorded history | Photos |
| YOUR page | External links | Walking Tour |