{"id":331,"date":"2011-10-09T18:25:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T18:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blamming.wordpress.com\/?page_id=331"},"modified":"2011-10-09T18:25:47","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T18:25:47","slug":"3-cahokia-warm-up","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ehomba.ro\/blamming5\/3-cahokia-warm-up\/","title":{"rendered":"3. Cahokia: Warm-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

. . . continued from 1.1.b<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s niece had a wedding the weekend after I arrived, lots of guests would be coming from out of town, Tom and Lee had an anniversary on Wednesday the 7th<\/sup>. So it was understandable that I wouldn\u2019t be seeing my brother again right away. But I decided to stay in town until he\u2019d have a bit of an occasion for me again, if only to say good-bye on my way out of town. He let me know when we were together a week ago that this could not be before Tuesday the 13th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a number of reasons, Springfield was on my itinerary. It\u2019s a major town on the edge of the Ozark Plateau. It might someday be a staging point for moving into the hinterlands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I put \u201cKirkwood to Springfield\u201d into the bicycle option on google maps, I was surprised to come up with an arc that traces through Jeff City, rather far to the north. It looked scenic and interesting, much of it along a bike trail next to the Missouri River, and the terrain is not too hilly \u2013 I\u2019ll be getting enough of that later. The route also takes me pretty close to Lake Saint Louis, providing an opportunity to stop by at Tom\u2019s and Lee\u2019s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I could spend a good week here with Mom. She wouldn\u2019t mind. The only drawback is that I don\u2019t want stay too long. It\u2019s mid-September already, with the days getting shorter and the nights chillier. But I ought to be OK. I should still be able to reach home easily by the end of October.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, sitting around Mom\u2019s apartment for a week was not easy. She is nervous, a lot like my grandma used to be, and she\u2019s accustomed to a pace of living that\u2019s way too slow and predictable for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I could spend time in the computer room, even indulge in a couple games on the Kisei Go Server. I could make a pilgrimage, for old time\u2019s sake, into Webster, where I suffered through the worst years of my life as a high school inmate, and out to Tilles Park, where Mom used to take us on picnics when were little. I could run a few errands, tweak my gear and prepare for the long haul.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it got into my head that I needed something more substantial than this, seeing as how I was going to be in St. Louis for well over a week.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I had long thought that someday I\u2019d like to see the mounds at Cahokia. I\u2019d never been there. It turned out to be close enough to Kirkwood that I could make a reasonable trip of it, out there and back in a single day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This would give me a chance to test the directions on google maps. After all, I couldn\u2019t print an actual map but would have to rely on numbered instructions to turn left or right, here or there, proceed 342 feet or two-tenths of a mile or whatever, on this or that street, avenue, boulevard or lane.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Undoubtedly there is some way to print out suitable maps for a bicycle tour \u2013 in different sizes, close-up detail or large scale, as required, two-sided and six to a page. But I couldn\u2019t figure out how to get a legible print of even the large-scale overview at the head of the page. I doubt I could have done it at home in a week on my own Macintosh. There was no way I\u2019d worry myself for very long on an institutional computer hooked up to a printer I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As it turned out, I still had to write in, by hand, hundreds of mostly very short distances beside each numbered \u201cturn left, turn right\u201d because, try as I might, I couldn\u2019t get the gray scale distances to print on either of the pc\u2019s in Bethesda\u2019s 3rd<\/sup> floor computer room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s only gotten me as far as Lexington. I\u2019d still like to plot my course from there all the way back home. It will be a lot more convenient now than it will when I\u2019m out on the road someplace \u2013 if I can find the hours to do this before leaving. There are still a lot of other tasks I have to wrap up before Tuesday morning, not to mention giving some attention to Mom. She says she will miss me \u201cterribly\u201d when I\u2019m gone. I doubt there\u2019s another person in the world who could say that honestly. (Poor Mom.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This sort of time bind is a constant feature of life for me, as are the little glitches and monkey wrenches that always seem to crop up in the unrolling of my personal agenda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My\u00a0 DeLorme Missouri Road Atlas, the southern half of whose pages I\u2019d sliced off and brought along, does not have anywhere near the detail I\u2019ll be needing to follow the hundreds of stages and turns I\u2019d mocked up for myself between here and Lexington, Kentucky. So it seemed like a good idea to make a trial run, with a light load, close to my secure base at Mom\u2019s.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At first I thought I would go to Cahokia on Friday. But I wasn\u2019t too well organized when I got up, and it was pouring rain around 8 a.m., when I would have left. So I put it off one more day. Turns out it was smart to wait. I was better prepared, better rested, and the weather was perfect \u2013 neither wet nor very hot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n