Yesterday was this year’s autumnal equinox, which was somewhat upstaged by NASA and its errant satellite. Summer’s passing might have gone unnoticed, because of all the hubbub surrounding the satellite, but no one can miss the change in the weather. Summer’s horrid highs have fled and fall’s more temperate clime has arrived instead. Fortunately, for us here in Saint Louis, fall is the most pleasant season of the year. This in part explains why fall is also chocked full of outdoor festivals. The paper has just recently published a guide to fall festivals. To this end, Anne and I biked about town to the following three festivals, we could have gone to a fourth, the U-City Jazz Festival, but I was just too pooped to pop for it.
- Green Homes & Great Health Festival
- Taste of Saint Louis
- Dancing in the Streets Festival
The Green Homes Festival moved to the Gardens this year and we cruised there first. We ate a little bit there, but with the Taste of Saint Louis looming on our itinerary, we didn’t want to pig out. We saw Anne’s teacher buddy, Joann, there and took advantage of Trailnet’s bike corral, which was being manned by two of Anne’s students. Did I mention that except for the food, all of Saturday’s entertainment was free? Green Homes is now the Garden’s warm-up act for next week’s Best of Missouri Festival.
The Taste of Saint Louis was the largest of the three festivals that we attended. It certainly was the most crowded. We shared a modest amount of food, both Indian and Thai that only cost a total $5. This is the best thing about Taste; you can sample food from a lot of fine restaurants around town for hardly any money. The restaurants must be subsidizing this festival as a way to advertise their wares. While at Taste, we also toured the Peabody Opera House. It was having a sneak preview of its newly refinished interior.
We ended up staying at Dancing in the Streets the longest. With multiple stages and with each stage cycling acts through it rapidly, there was a lot of dancing to see. Anne bumped into the MRH-HS principal and I saw a couple of people from work too there. We took lots of pictures all day, so I intend to milk this one day’s activity all week. We got 22 miles. 🙄