Everything’s Coming Up Daisies

As this post’s title suggests today was another good day to be back on the bike. In contrast to yesterday, today’s weather was fine. The park was crowded with families, which means plenty of youngsters who can barely control their bicycles and have little regard for the rules of the road. I can’t fault those parents for bring their children to Forest Park, because we did the same thing when our boys were young and our guys caused more than their fair share of accidents. At one point Anne and I both had to go off-roading to avoid a kid who just couldn’t hold his line. That was nothing though compared to the obstacle course that met us when we bailed on the crowded outer loop and ducked into Kennedy Forest.

Yesterday’s storms must have knocked down the tree that lay across the trail. It was covered in vines, but fortunately I had my ace botanist with me. She informed me that while either side of the trail was lined with poison ivy, the tree itself was only covered with Virginia creeper. So, it was safe to hike our legs over it and carry our bikes on over to the other side. Later, we stopped at the visitor’s center to report the down tree. Anne was rewarded by being the first person to report it. She had suggested that we both try to move the tree, but I thought that had back injury written all over it. In the past, I’ve seen cyclist in the park carrying brooms to sweep up broken glass on the trail and clippers to trim low-hanging branches, but I’ve never seen a bicyclist with a chainsaw strapped across his back.

We headed over to the Central West End for some lunch and were rewarded with an excellent new find, the Central Café and Bakery. Located “in the center of the Central West End”, on Euclid, just north of Maryland, it features Middle Eastern cuisine. We both had wraps which were to die for. After lunch, we headed home. We were almost there, when for some reason I said to Anne, “Get thee behind me woman.” I think that I had been thinking about “Taming of the Shrew”. She decided that that was a challenge and kicked it up enough to pass me. So, now we’re racing down Crestwood, which has pavement that is all beat to hell bouncing around pell-mell on skinny tires and an SUV is approaching us head-on. I got scared and played the safety card and warned her of the danger here, she relented and I raced ahead. Later, she called me on my ‘dirty’ trick and I confessed, but I also asked her, isn’t it better that we are holding this conversation here at home and not in the ER? On the otherhand, we both made the light at Clayton, the first light that we had made all day.