"We saved this town"...well we didn't but they sure did!

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Day 39 Farmington, MO to Saint Genevieve, MO
Total Miles: 27.8 (2599.0 miles to date)

The day started of with a crash and a bang…from the sky. A massive thunderstorm erupted directly over the pavilion we were sleeping under today and pretty much destroyed any illusion we had today about an early start and a productive day. The rain started at around 5am so we got to sleep in until around 11am when it was still raining and storming. By the time it stopped we decided that we should go get my bike fixed and get some food. Because everything was damp we again had low spirits…we need to break this trend.

We got to the bike shop (where I was told the proprietor was weird and only go there if I had an emergency) and met with the owner who is quite talkative…I myself am also blessed with the gift of gab so I humored him. It got weirder and weirder when he began to equate our having minimal bike knowledge and embarking on a cross-country ride with having no knowledge of firearms and hunting before trying to kill a lion. He assured us that mechanical disaster was just down the road. Allow me to go off on a tangent:
We have gone to quite a few bike shops during this trip and met a lot of cool and not so cool bike techs. Basically there are two categories: the guy who actually rides bikes and may even have toured and the ultimate bike geek. The guy who rides will get your bike to the point where it will ride just fine for 1000+mi. at a time and you won’t have any major problems. He is understanding of the fact that when you are riding 4000 miles you can’t afford the space and weight of a full toolkit to keep your bike pristine; this is of course because this bike tech lives on the planet earth and he is well grounded. Now the geek believes that every bike (and every bike is actually only bikes that he approves of or has made himself) needs to be a factory specifications at all times. This means that the bike should probably be completely disassembled and reassembled on a daily basis (he is allowing for the fact that you will ride it during the whole day and thus do not have the time to complete this process on a twice daily basis). If your bike is short of these standards it is deemed junk by the geek and he assures you it is not likely you will make it down the street let alone to the East coast despite that fact that your bike has already made it 2500miles, because as he can clearly tell you; you got lucky.

Back to the main story. We got out of there quickly but we did get some good advice from the bike shop. He told us to go to Ste. Genevieve instead of Ste. Mary, MO because it was the oldest town West of the Mississippi River and was very historic; it was also closer than Ste. Mary. We decided that since we had a late start we would just make Ste. Genevieve our goal and try to find a hotel or Bed and Breakfast there since it would probably storm again tonight. We ended up calling around and got a really great deal on an amazing Bed and Breakfast run by retired teachers called the Main St. Inn. It was a refurbished Inn from the mid 1800’s and was really nice. There was a wine shop next door that offered us free tastings and we also found a nice place for dinner. Finally we just walked around Ste. Genevieve and looked at all of the buildings including 3 of the 4 remaining vertical log cabin buildings in the country (the 4th is in Louisiana). The city itself was quaint and had a European feel to it. To think that in 93’ when the big flood came it would have been all destroyed if not for the valiant efforts of the townspeople who built levees from sandbags for weeks to save the town. I’m glad they did. Everyone you talk to in town eventually will say the phrase, “In 1993 when the floodwaters came, we saved this town.” It was really amazing that it was indeed true. We got some information on how to get back to our route for tomorrow’s ride and found out we would be able to take an old ferry across the Mississippi “the father of waters” and we could not think of a better way to begin this final leg our journey. Tomorrow we begin that ride and we will begin it with refreshed bodies and spirits after our stay here in Ste. Genevieve.

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Comments

[Laurel]

I had no idea that all bike techs were guys! (how un-PC) ;) We're in Montrose enjoying showers, laundry, a bed, horses, and dinners out! hope to meet up with you two at some point- but you're moving much faster than we are!