Meet Me in St. Louis

The ride into St. Louis, MO was a bit more complicated than a typical city arrival. In fact, we had not one but two different police escorts leading us into the city. I won’t lie – it’s a pretty cool feeling blowing through red lights in a unified double pace line when riding into a metropolitan area. Once in the city, we were treated to lunch by my teammate Whitey’s mom (he is a St. Louis native) at a local golf course. We were introduced to the St. Louis specialty of toasted ravioli (yess) and later in the city had the chance to sample another local specialty, Gooey Butter cake. As a picky eater in the realm of desserts, I was thrilled to finally find a cake to be passionate about. Riding into lodging at the nicest hotel of the summer, we caught our first glimpse of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. It’s supposed to represent the “Gateway to the West,” but in our case I guess East is more applicable.

The next day, we had a friendship visit with two local organizations. In addition to some of the games that have been reoccurring at these types of events (Connect Four, Jenga, bowling), we were also given the option of playing badminton. Badminton and the Hoppey name are quite synonymous, so I was excited to hit back and forth with some of the clients there. I spent our free afternoon walking through the city park (one of the coolest and most interactive of its kind I’ve ever witnessed… see goofiness below) and checking out the arch up close. Sadly, time did not allow for us to head to the top, but we got just close enough to marvel at its structure and take some obligatory artsy pictures. St. Louis is a heck of a city and definitely made up for all of the hills that brought us there!

Leaving St. Louis was a bit chaotic. There was concern for riding through a “bad part of town,” but I wasn’t too fazed (former Detroiter here!). After getting out of the city, we crossed the Mississippi River on a bridge. This same bridge also marked the transition into Illinois and sent us on our way via Route 66. It was so cool to get the double whammy in terms of iconic American sites. After completing our second longest ride of the summer into Effingham, IL (116 miles… nbd), we were invited into the home of a professional couple involved in local disability awareness. We found out these two got married after ten days of knowing each other, which was a fun fact in itself. We also found out some troubling news about Illinois and its statewide stance on disabilities. The state ranks 51^st in terms of funding in this area, a fact I did not expect to hear. Hopefully inspirational people like the ones we met will be able to make the necessary strides to right this wrong.