Day 29 St Charles IL to Augusta IL

June 9, 2023

Today was a deliberately short day. I’ve been having problems with my derrière so I switched out my bike seat with an old one I happened to throw in the truck before we left home. So it’s like a new seat as far as my butt is concerned. It’s very frustrating when your butt is the rate limiting factor to how far you can ride.
After the seat was installed, I took off for Augusta. The trail passes Frontier Park which is on the waterfront.

St Charles was the first albeit temporary capital of Missouri.

St Charles was also a major manufacturer of train cars as well as trolley and subway cars.

I passed close to Weldon Spring. This was the major site for ammunition production during WW2. Afterwards it became a uranium processing plant for nuclear weapons. Both endeavors have resulted in a huge environmental cleanup.

There were lots of bridges today I stopped counting after eight. There were wooden bridges and metal bridges and then there were wooden and metal bridges.

I met Peter and Henry at the Augusta trailhead and we had a light lunch at the Good News Brewery.

We left Augusta and drove to Chesterfield MO. Peter and I were married here at my Grandfather’s country house nearly 52 years ago! We were dumbfounded by the degree of development. This used to be a rural community and the number of suburban housing developments was staggering. The area was unrecognizable. We finally found the Gumbo flats and traced our way back to the hillside where we looked up and saw Gramps’s house! It’s still there. Before my Grandfather bought it about a hundred years ago, it was a summer camp and Vincent Price’s mother was a cook there. He was a little boy then and, according to the neighbors, was frequently up to mischief. My parents sold it in the eighties

We got married right in front of the house.

A good short day and my seat is OK!🤞🤞🤞

Today's ride: 30 miles (48 km)
Total: 1,088 miles (1,751 km)

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Ed SpeareThat was very neat you could go past your wedding venue. Yes, things do change over time, but glad you got to see it as it is now.
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1 year ago

Susan WelchI love the backstory!! How special to revisit that spot 52 years later…and going strong! Love the photos….
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1 year ago