Tag Archives: Tower Grove Park

I’ve Got 99 Problems

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Bronc in Cow Camp, Charles M Russell, 1897

Bronc in Cow Camp, Charles M Russell, 1897

… and a bronc ain’t one.

“I put a dollar in the change machine and nothing changed.” – George Carlin

Anne had a couple of broncs in first grade today and I guess that she broke them, because they both broke down into tears when she told these two little broncos that they would not be getting smiley faces for the day, but only so-so faces, because of their behavior. There are consequences for a person’s actions, even in the first grade. Still, as rough as today might sound, yesterday was far worse. A pre-school child barfed and Anne had to cleaned it up. I avoided all contact with her after I heard that. Tonight, Anne felt a little broken down too.

🙂

The western artist, Charles M. Russell, lived in Saint Louis. His family was a prosperous nineteenth-century Saint Louis family. Russell Boulevard is named after one of his relatives. When we did the Trailnet Tweed ride, we learned that the Russell family made its money in coal and clay and then used these products to make brick, once mined and made just south of present day Tower Grove Park. The pictured painting resides in the Amon Carter Museum, in Fort Worth.

My 99 problems (Part 1):

  1. People who get their news from CAPS LOCK email forwards.

Don’t let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you. Bye-Bye!

2015 Tweed Ride

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We did the tweed ride. This is a ride where everyone hides their spandex and wears dry clean only cycle wear. In 2013, the emphasis was on art, this time it was all about history, in particular the local history of the Tower Grove South neighborhood. Michael from WashU was our visiting professor. The ride began and ended at the London Tea Room on Morgan Ford. Anne and I will definitely have to go back there. The actual ride was only five miles, but with five stops it still lasted a while. The photos show a few of the forty-some participants.

Eau de Oxter

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Mark, Alice, Chris and Anne

Mark, Alice, Chris and Anne

I was asked why I don’t publish very many photos of myself. Well, I’m not pretty, at least not as beautiful as Anne is, IMHO, and I do take plenty of pretty pictures of her and other beautiful people and other things. Why would anyone want to look at my mug, when they could see a flower, a sweet smelling flower? Well, here I am, certainly stylized, but front and center, with my posse in tow.

It was a beautiful day today. Anne and I launched towards the park this morning, a 5K run being held there made the cross park ride seem like a marathon, but that’s not scheduled until tomorrow. Hundreds of people, especially little people, were all over the bike path. We sloughed our way through this human tide to the CWE and Mike’s Bikes. There we met Alice and Chris with their newly rented, trusty, steel steeds. We headed south towards Tower Grove Park. Our route took more than a few detours as we tried to navigate all of the construction ongoing now in the hospital district. We toured the Handlebar in the Grove, with its rather eclectic vending machine, full of bike tools, tubes, smokes, condoms and the like.

The farmers market was going great guns in Tower Grove. We noshed a bit there and then circled the park. On the way back we stopped at Olio, a new to us restaurant that had made the Post’s best restaurant list last month. I’ve ridden by it dozens of times and always wanted to check it out. In an old gas station, it was very nice, very modern and very cool. Because we were going to go out to dinner in only a few hours hence, we only had appetizers, but such appetizers they were. We all shared and everyone’s choice was excellent. I had the Post’s recommended baby octopuses, which apparently slowed the whole order. According to our waitress, “The cooks had some trouble corralling the baby octopuses, because they kept climbing out of the tank.”

Back to the CWE and Mike’s Bikes and then Anne and I hammered home. After showers and a quick turnaround, we met Alice and Chris again at the Sidney Street Café, for some more hâute cuisine. Fortunately for me the portions there were small. It was equally as enjoyable as Olio. Two wins in one day! After dinner, we bade bon voyage to our friends, saying à bientôt instead of adieu, because we have already made plans to see them again in May, for both their son’s college graduations. OBTW, oxter is Scottish and not French and we four cyclist were quite able to clear out the interior of Olio.

Rock-n-Roll Craft Show

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Cherokee Lemp Historic District

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.

Bikes, Birds and Brunch

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Green Heron on a Victoria Lily Pad
Great Blue Heron with Red Eared Sliders
Great White Egret

We launched earlier than yesterday’s crack of noon, for today’s bicycle ride. We wanted to beat the heat. We rode though Forest Park, which was more crowded today than it was yesterday. The Tour de Cure was running down Lindell Boulevard and there was another cancer related charity event, a walk that was circling the Muny Mile. With some slogging, we made it through the park and on towards Tower Grove Park. Halfway around Tower Grove, we elected to head over to Local Harvest for brunch. Rather unusually, it was not crowded. I found out later that the restaurant has reduced its hours to just the weekend. This might explain why it wasn’t overflowing, as is normally the case, other people might have thought it had closed altogether. After brunch, we circled the other half of Tower Grove Park. We saw the Green Heron in one of the lily ponds in front of the Piper Palm House. He looked to be a yearling, he was smaller than normal. Returning to Forest Park, we saw the egret next. He was fishing in the lazy section of river that flows through Steinberg Prairie. I was having trouble getting a good picture of him, because he kept disappearing behind an island, but then the Blue Heron swept in and flushed the egret back out into the open for us. The Red Eared Sliders seemed oblivious to the whole thing.

Looking Fierce, Dear!

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This is what you should do if you ever find yourself in a room with four orcs

This is what you should do if you ever find yourself in a room with four orcs

Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the miles, maybe it was me, maybe it was that I asked her to look fierce for the picture, nah it was probably the heat. I woke up in the Lou this morning, still with a body clock set to Pacific Time. Consequently, our usual dawn launch bike ride was launched closer to the crack of noon today. It was hot out, but hey this is Saint Louis, what else can you expect. We bicycled over to Tower Grove Park for this year’s rendition of the International Festival. This is a great festival, but some how it always manages to be so ungodly hot. This year was no different. We ended up stopping off at the gardens for a wee bit of a cool down, both ways. On the way out, we caught a sale of the garden’s daylilies. We had the luck to arrive, just when they were going on sale, buy one, and get one free. I’ll plant the roots tomorrow morning. We saw the Rack + Clutch, Free-Range Fashion step van again and I managed to cajole Anne into at least looking inside. When we finally arrived at the festival, our first stop was the Model UN booth, where Bobbi was hanging out. She went to high school and played D&D with Dan. I know what she would say if told, “You’re in a room with four orcs.” I can hear her now, “I smell bacon!” Our next stop was the Scottish booths. There were about a half-dozen of them. It is here where Anne posed with her six-foot two-handed claymore. Looking fierce, dear! They had a listing of the clans and their septs and under Clan Farquharson could be found Sept Finlayson. They also were doing sheaf tosses. I got a good picture of this game. We ate in Afghanistan and then set out to explore the rest of the world. Of particular note in our explorations was an East Saint Louis African music and dance troupe, headed by a guy nick-named Sunny, who trained under Katherine Dunham. Sunny was also the name of Dunham’s older brother.