Category Archives: Biking

Bowood Farms and Cafe Osage

Last night we headed to Bowood Farms/Cafe Osage in the CWE for Green Drinks!  We drove our bicycles, despite the heat — keeping it green and all.  I enjoyed touring Bowood’s garden and learning about their history, and I chatted with some lovely people.  We toured their organic garden, where they grow some of the produce served at Cafe Osage (sadly, the lack of a dinner menu thwarted our eating plans — we’ll have to go back for lunch sometime).

Drinks in the garden at Bowood

We often skip the “drinks” aspect of Green Drinks altogether, one part frugality, one part, we just don’t drink that much.  Tonight, we broke out of the mold and ordered a blueberry martini to share.  Delicious, but at $9 + tip, I’m reminded why we don’t do this all the time!

I enjoyed the ride home at dusk, although the weather makes me wish that the World Naked Bike Ride (if you don’t want to see naked people, don’t follow the link) happened every night.  If you’re feeling shy, you can go here, for a tamer, text only description of the St. Louis WNBR.  We missed the St. Louis WNBR this past Saturday, but next year?  Be there or be square 😉

Hibernating

Are there any animals that hibernate in summer?  If so, I want to be one of them — crawl into a dark, cool cave and not emerge until the temperature returns to somewhat sane levels (i.e., below 80-degrees).

On Friday night, we biked over to Local Harvest Cafe for dinner.  We shared their vegan Green Plate special and a bowl of chilled borscht.  Borscht is basically beet soup, which sounds weird (at least I’ve always thought so and never tried it before), but this soup was amazing!  Mmm, I could eat bowls and bowls!

After dinner, we hit up Tower Grove Park.  I morphed into a little park creature (i.e., put on my Five Fingers), and we played frisbee for awhile.  Before calling it a night, we visited our community garden bed and harvested some beets, carrots, and rutabaga.  Some of those beets are destined to become borscht!

From the time we returned home Friday night, until my 6:15am run this morning, I entered hibernation mode.  I didn’t leave the apartment, other than short jaunts to water the plants on the porch, for over forty-eight hours.  What can I say — I took the heat advisory seriously, but all good things must come to an end.

Happy summer solstice!  (But, Weather, I really don’t need 100-degree heat to convince me it’s summer.  I believe you, okay?  Can you just back off a little now?  Please???)

Open Streets in the heat

Yesterday, I was on my bike for almost five-and-a-half hours, volunteering for Open Streets in St. Louis. Five-and-a-half scorching, 100-plus-degree heat index hours.  It sounded like a good idea when I signed up in April.  Get up at 6am after a late night at Opera Theatre and spend lots of hours out in the sun?  Fabulous idea.

All complaining aside, I enjoyed the opportunity to experience, and help with, Open Streets 2.0 — a great day for bicycling (and walking, jogging, rollerblading, etc.) in St. Louis.

Headed home, a stopped train delayed our trip and increased our time in the elements.  By that point, I had thrown caution (and sun safety) to the wind and removed my t-shirt to prevent death by extreme heat.  Fortunately, we found a shady spot to wait it out.  Eventually, the train passed, and I mustered enough energy to climb the hill and roll on home.  I spent the rest of the day recovering.  Lots of fluids, a shower to scrub off all of the icky sunscreen, some high-quality food (the fact that we made lunch serves as either a testament to our commitment to good food or to our insanity (perhaps heat-induced?)), and a nap — just what the doctor ordered 🙂

The  next two Open Streets events will take place in September and October.  While I hope that the temperatures will be a bit friendlier then, I’ve learned not to bet against St. Louis weather.

And so it begins

Free outdoor summer fun in St. Louis arrived last night with the first Wednesday night concert at the Botanical Garden.  One of the big perks of bike riding is attending events without having to worry too much about parking, traffic, etc.

Instead of rushing to get there early, we cooked a nice dinner (featuring local black beans and salsa so delicious that I could just eat it by the spoonful).  After a bit of digesting, we biked over to The Garden.

We arrived to find the bicycle racks full.  No worries, on to the Forbidden Light Posts.

Background: Until about a year ago, when The Garden finally installed decent bike parking, the bicycle rack was a classic fail: wheel bender style, not bolted to the ground, sitting in the middle of the parking lot with obvious signs that it had been hit by cars in the past.  Look my bike up there like a sitting duck?  No thanks.  Many other bikers obviously felt the same way; we preferred the safer and more secure alternative of locking our bikes to the light posts.  The Garden disapproved and sent their minions in golf carts to inform us about the “proper bike parking.”  Uh huh.  After several failed attempts to communicate like reasonable people and explain to security why their idea of bicycle parking was unacceptable (and several attempts to contact higher-ups at The Garden to discuss ideas for remedying the issue, which received no reply), we resorted to simply ignoring the security guards and going about the business of locking our bikes to the Forbidden Light Posts.

Whether it was through our civil disobedience, or the contact attempts, The Garden finally got the memo.  Since the installation, I have enjoyed the new bicycle accommodations on many occasions, but last night, with the “lot” full, we resorted to old patterns.  (This is not a complaint in any way — I love indications that lots of people are bicycling.  A full bike rack sends a powerful message!)  No one gave us trouble, which was good, because what would they have suggested?

We suggest doubling the amount of bicycle parking.  While  the current amount is more than enough (at least right now), for business as usual at The Garden, the bicycle parking will continue to fill to overflowing during special events.  For a relatively small investment of money and space (especially compared to car parking), they could accommodate all of the bicycles we saw last night, no light posts needed!

Go, Iowa!

No, I’m not cheering for the Hawkeyes, I’m cheering for Iowa’s 7th place finish in the Bike Friendly State rankings.  My current state of Missouri didn’t fare so well, coming in 28th.  Lots of good things happening all around, but a lot more work to do!