You know when you see something and wish that you had a camera, well today I did. This post’s picture is of a juggling jogger. The shorts and t-shirt that he is wearing bespeaks the mid-sixties weather we enjoyed today. And yes I did have his permission to photograph him. As interesting as his exercise regimen is he is not the most unusual sight that I have seen on the Park’s bike path. Earlier this year I saw a deer, which is strange considering that the Park in in the middle of the Saint Louis metropolitan area. I have also seen wild turkeys, including one that exploded from its roost, right beside the bike trail, as I rode by it on a pre-dawn ride. That was a wake up! No the most interesting sight that I have seen on the bike trail goes to the guy with the snake. It was a warm summer evening and this guy was naked to the waist. Across his shoulders and the back of his neck was a twelve foot python. The snake was also coiled around each of his arms. He was walking slowly and frequently stopped to engage people in conversation.
I rode once around the Park’s bike trail and then decided to head over to Tower Grove Park. I got 25 miles. Today’s header shows the Chinese Pavilion in Tower Grove Park. Tower Grove Park was founded 1868 and according to the Tower Grove Park website:
The Chinese Pavilion is a reflection of the “Chinoiserie” popular in pre-Victorian England and visible in the Chinese Chippendale fencing used elsewhere in Tower Grove Park, this pavilion, in the Anglo-Chinese style — complete with dragons of sheet metal guarding upper and lower corners of the roof! — was designed by Henry Thiele. In keeping with the Anglo-Chinese style, the six pairs of columns supporting the concave-hipped roof are painted lacquer red. Appropriately, Shaw and his horticulturist Gurney surrounded the Chinese Pavilion with a grove of Ginkgo trees.