Anne and I biked in the Park on Sunday.  We were slow in getting out the door in the morning.  By the time we made it to the Park most of the marathon runners had already passed.  There were just a few stragglers left.  I estimate that they were looking at a six plus hour run.  That assumes that they finished.

This was Anne’s first chance to see the returning flock of egrets, so we stopped to watch them for a while.  I got some good shots.  I especially like the picture above of a Snowy Egret. He is chasing after his intended mate and seemed to be performing some sort of mating dance.  Anne suggests that our readers should submit comments describing what he is saying.  A pair of the larger and more numerous Great White Egrets can be seen below strutting their stuff too.

We took a break from biking and had lunch outside at Culpepper’s at the corner of Maryland and Euclid.  On the way back, we stopped at the Eco-Expo, which was being held around the planetarium.  A highlight of the expo, was the Metro-East Parks and Recreation District’s booth. 

This organization is the union of Madison and St. Clair counties.  Madison County has long led the Saint Louis area with its development of bicycling trails.  St. Clair County now wants to get into the act too.  Later this year a trail will connect the extensive Madison County Trails with the nascent St. Clair County system.

The map to the left shows the current status of the Metro-East trail network.  Purple trails are already existence.  Orange trails are under constructions and green trails are planned.  Click on the map to see the trail system’s details.  Be warned, it is a seven megabyte file.

After the expo we headed for home.  We met Bill Abkemeier on Wydown.  It looked like he was biking to Kaldi’s.  We got eighteen miles.