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Category Archives: Team Kaldis
MS Ride Day One
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After Crossing the Finish Line Happiness Ensues
Lafayette Square Bike Races
Lafayette Square Kids Race
Cute tots, fast women and plenty of sweaty guys, Lafayette Square had it all last night as it inaugurated another Labor Day weekend with the Gateway Cup, the premiere bicycle races in Saint Louis. Tom and Audrey hosted their annual front lawn party, with curbside viewing of the races and we had dinner with Don and DJ at Square One Brewery. The evening was delightfully cool. It was good to see so many Team Kaldi’s members and fellow cyclists.
Women’s CAT 1 Race Line-Up
The World In Your Cup
Raw Coffee Beans
Today’s original plan involved taking in the Botanical Garden’s Best of Missouri festival and the adjoining Shaw Art Fair, but the weather today was cold, grey and blustery. We thought that we had dressed appropriately for the day, but it soon became apparent that we hadn’t. We were cycling past the Grand Basin, site of last night’s Forest Park Forever’s fundraising gala, where all sorts of neat new plans for enhancing the park had been announced, when I had an epiphany and suggested that we do something inside instead of out. So, we headed over to the Missouri History Museum to take in the opening today exhibit on coffee.
Step Aside, Seattle
This new exhibit originally hailed from Seattle’s Burke Museum and was sponsored by such Northwest notables as Microsoft, Boeing and of course Starbucks. It was originally called “The World in Your Cup”, but its title and really most of the show had morphed to become very Saint Louis centric. The show’s original title had been appended with, “… and Saint Louis in Your Cup.” Long known as a beer town, apparently Saint Louis has sported some real chops and was once known as this nation’s coffee capital. Who knew? With its French origin, almost from its founding, Saint Louis has been a center for coffee roasting, brewing and drinking. As the rather in your face magazine cover to the left implies, this exhibit and coffee in general is not and has never been the exclusive domain of the Northwest. Chief sponsor for this instance of the exhibit is the Dana Brown trust. After the museum, we headed back, with the hope of snagging some coffee and a wee bit of lunch at Kaldi’s, but it was not to be, because every table had been camped on by students who were studying, but not supporting the coffeehouse. We ended up at Katie’s Pizza, which was fine.
Burlap Coffee Bean Bags
Bike MS 2015
Bike MS 2015 – Anne
Last weekend, Anne and I successfully completed another Bike MS ride, our 11th and 14th respectively, at least as close as we can figure. This ride used be called the MS-150, because there was once only one route and that route ran 150 miles. Now, there are four routes each day ranging from 25 to 100 miles. We rode 75 miles the first day and 50 miles the second, for a total of 125 miles. The weather this year was blessedly cool, maybe even a little too cool, not that I’m complaining. The previous weekend had featured highs in the mid-nineties, this ride had highs in the low seventies and lows in the forties. We tent camped, so those morning lows were pretty cold.
This year’s ride featured a change of venue. For a while now, the MS ride had been based out of Columbia, MO, but Boone County closed their fairgrounds and they had to move. We moved to Godfrey, IL. The new venue is Lewis and Clark Community College, a school grounds that began life as a private girls school. The facilities were really quite a step up from Columbia. New amenities included a swimming pool, locker rooms and the best one was delicious catered meals. As with any new venue there were a few glitches, but those should be smoothed out in time for next year.
Saturday was the busier, cooler and windier day of the two. We started off with the wind, heading east to Edwardsville, which was pleasant. The Madison County Trails were a big part of this route. Heading back though, we fought strengthening headwinds all the way. We had two brushes with “wildlife”. The first one involved a dog and a small pony. Anne was ahead and called out, “Look a dog and pony show.” Just then the dog commenced vigorously licking the pony’s crotch. I called back to her, “That’s not a very PG show.” The second incident was similar, except that the shoe was on the other foot. Whenever we see deer statuary, we call out to each other, “Look, Dear!” This call is answered with, “Oh, Dear.” We were riding through a rather tony neighborhood, when I spied some real deer in someone’s front yard. I called out, “Look, Dear.” At which point one of the deer proceeded to mount another one, “Oh, Dear!”
Sunday’s ride was more laid back. We started later; rode fewer miles and there was less wind. Near the end of the day, we were riding on a shady one-lane road. There were plenty of rolling hills, but unfortunately, the pavement was pretty beat-up. This made zooming through the rollers difficult. On the biggest one, the downhill ended with a sharp right turn, which forced us to come to an almost complete stop. This turn is pictured above. Making the turn, I saw that the uphill climb ended in a wall. Anne was ahead again and was making noises about walking it, so in anticipation I dismounted. She faked me out though and rode up the wall and then waited for me at the top.
We Shall Over Comb
Hibiscus Close-up
Yes dear friends this post is yet another treatise on the Donald, but before I launch into it and probably turn you all off, let me give you my news. I went to a concert last night at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. As part of its annual summer time Whitaker Festival, this concert was free to attend. I went to the gardens in response to a Team Kaldi’s invite, from Stew and Nancy. I was sitting on the fence about going and when I finally did decide to go, I had let too much time slip away. The event was billed as a potluck, so I decided to bring the only thing that I had in the house, beer. I figured that beer would be a big hit with a bunch of thirsty bikers. As it turned out Stew, Nancy and their friend Linda were the only other people there and they were all drinking wine. Still, as Nancy pointed out it was a rare, at least in Saint Louis, beautiful summer’s evening. I had a good time speaking with them. The music was somewhat forgettable, in part because we continued to talk over it throughout the concert.
Trump 2016! Lisa Simpson 2020!!
I don’t know when exactly the Donald’s presidential campaign story first exploded upon the news cycle, because it was already going great guns, when I first emerged from my vacation inspired, self-enforced news blackout. I guess that the story hit a crescendo when Trump captured the #1 spot in presidential polls among GOP hopefuls, making him truly the face of the Republican Party and its hair too. If the Donald is a viable candidate then the movie, “Idiocracy”, is now a documentary. Now God forbid that the Donald ever gets elected, but in a show of its prescient power, the long running TV cartoon show “The Simpsons” once aired an episode entitled “Bart to the Future” that had Lisa become the first female president. She became president after Trump had bankrupted the country. Brother Bart became her secretary of Keeping It Real.
Now the candidacy of Lisa Simpson is not without a few constitutional hurdles. On first inspection, she is only an eight-year-old girl and the minimum age for the US Presidency is 35, but she has been eight since the show’s inception in 1989, making her actually old enough to be president in time for the 2016 election. I’m sure that she would make a great president and I might even support her over Hillary, but there is just one minor problem, Lisa is a fictional character. I don’t know of any particular clause in the constitution that specifically forbids fictional characters from holding elective office. Plenty have made it on the ballots before. Some of our best presidents have been fictional characters. There is Michael Douglas’ role in “American President” and Harrison Ford’s “Air Force One”, for example. We here in Missouri have proudly elected a dead man and Lisa is way more animated than he was, but I’m sure that Scalia would have no trouble garnering five votes to disqualify her. So, what we need is the passage of the 28th Amendment, allowing fictional characters to hold public office, which would have no trouble passing amidst the convulsions of a Trump Presidency. That would then make Matt Groening the Master of the Universe, a job that he is already way overqualified for and the country could begin to heal…