Cherokee Lemp Historic District

In the world of retail, yesterday was Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, but today is Shop Local Saturday, a day where conscientious shoppers eschew big box chain stores for the little shop around the corner. Originally, Anne wanted to go to the Maplewood business district and do some early Christmas shopping there. She was even onboard with cycling there, not that cycling to Maplewood would have given us many miles. Then I read in the paper that their big Christmas street party is the next weekend. So we tabled that idea for later.

Nat, one of our Facebook friends, did a shout out about the Rock-n-Roll Craft Show that she was doing on Cherokee Street. That sounded much better to me. After another cup of coffee, we mounted-up and headed-out. We rode through Forest Park and Tower Grove Park. We also rode through the Shaw neighborhood and South Grand, both scenes this week of demonstrations and violence in the aftermath of the Michael Brown grand jury announcement.

Everywhere was quiet, but none more than Tower Grove Park, which was eerily so. Tower Grove Park is sandwiched between the Shaw neighborhood and South Grand. We arrived safely at the Rock-n-Roll Craft Show, which featured live music and crafts for sale. Go figure. Anne went in to shop, while I waited outside with the bikes and all of the other people with Y-chromosomes. On the way home the weather really warmed up and both parks were full of people.