49. Ste. Genevieve, Missouri

Day 49:  Sunday, August 9, 1981
Steelville to Ste. Genevieve:  83 miles

Today was the kind of day that makes me wonder why I'm a bicyclist.

It started out peaceful enough.  I awoke at 5:30, and got up before Jack for a change.  We were on the road by 6:30, not too long after sunrise.  The cool morning air and no traffic made for pleasant riding most of the way to Flat River.  Although there were still some hills to climb, the grade was generally downhill all the way to the Mississippi River.

In Flat River, one of the bolts on my luggage rack broke, and it took the better part of an hour to repair.  I didn't catch up with Jack until Farmington, where a man he had met chased me down in a pickup truck and led me to him.  Since we had come 60 miles already, we decided to eat in a restaurant instead of fixing bologna sandwiches again for lunch.  My half chicken tasted just fine, especially when compared to baloney.

The ride into Ste. Genevieve was rather harrowing.  The narrow, two-lane road was heavily traveled, and had no shoulder.  We had unpleasant incidents with half a dozen drivers, including having firecrackers tossed at us.  Much of the traffic was caused by Ste. Genevieve's Jour des Fetes, a celebration of the settling of the town.  It was all over by the time we arrived, but the teen-agers and their noisy cars were starting to claim their territory for the evening.

Downtown Ste. Genevieve

Once again, after our longest day, we didn't feel like doing our own cooking.  So we enjoyed a pizza and some beer at the Pizza Hut.

We're in the town park right now.  I'm not sure how much sleep we'll get - it's on the circuit, and they're all trying their best to rev their engines and lay rubber.