Oh, the noble Duke of York.
He needed ten-thousand steps.
He marched to get them up,
to the top of the hill.
And he marched,
To get them back down again.

And when his steps were up, his steps were up.
And when his steps were down, his steps were down.
But when his steps were only halfway up,
His steps were neither up nor down.

We survived our little romantic getaway, with our marriage still intact. We met again with the group of our newfound friends for breakfast at the lodge, but I am afraid that the ghosts of the lodge had taken their toll, because three of them were no longer in our number. After breakfast, we checked out and drove up the hill to the top of Flagpole Hill, where we began our hiking for the day. Back in the day, Flagpole Hill was a favorite challenge among our biking buddies. We would race to its top, sucking on the exhaust fumes of the passing cars. Way before then, back in the 1950s it was the site of an army Nike missile battery, part of a ring of defenses that were to protect Saint Louis from Russian bombers.

For the sake of full disclosure, we first marched down the hill and then back up again. At the tops of the bluffs the trails were mostly in good shape, but the lower we went the muddier they had gotten from yesterday’s rainstorm. We ended the hike with muddy boots and pants. The trails in Pere Marquette use different symbols for their blazes and we thought that the heart-shaped one was the most appropriate one for us. Later, we hit My Just Desserts for lunch. We split a sandwich and a slice of their pecan pie, which was just to die for.