Amazingly, I slept the whole way through the night despite the heat and woke quite late (by my standards anyway). Not wanting to linger and wonder if I’d make it up the hill or not, I just packed up and drove out, thinking I’d have breakfast after I’d made way. I walked up the hill to inspect the road and chose the best line that meant my bike wouldn’t get caught in a tree and avoided the ruts. I got two thirds of the way up the hill before my wheels started spinning in the gravel. Hmmm. I rolled back a bit and tried again, but still the same result. I was starting to get a hot flush now. Then I remembered I could choose to not be an idiot and put the car in 1st gear. A few spins later, she was up the hill without too much hassle. Nice!
I carried on east along the highway driving through ever more corn fields. I’d spent my whole trip wondering when I’d come across the endless fields of corn and I finally found them. Still green but standing tall, they were months away from harvesting but some of the plants had small buds flowering on their stalks indicating early growth. They are definitely a pretty crop anyway.
When I saw a pullout on the side of the highway, I took the opportunity to alleviate my hunger with a bacon and egg sandwich for brekkie. As I sat eating, I got a couple of honks from passers by which was encouraging! The rest of the drive into St. Louis I was lost in my imagination as I listened to music. All too soon, the beautiful country highway came to an abrupt end and I merged onto an interstate highway to join hundreds of others in their commute into the city of St. Louis (pronounced “lewis”). My only point of interest here was the free zoo I’d read about in my Lonely Planet book.
Thankfully, the zoo was on the outskirts of the city and I found it with no trouble, happy to be off the highway. I found out the zoo was nestled in Forest Park, a huge park whose facilities were completely free to all users. “Forest Park, For Everyone”. Cool! I followed the signs to the visitor’s centre and parked. It was no cooler in St. Louis than it had been in the country, perhaps it was even more humid? In the airconditioned visitor’s centre, I talked to a nice older man who told me about the zoo and the interesting things in the park which I might like to see. When I came out of the bathroom a bit later, he called out to me and asked if I wouldn’t mind placing a sticker on the world map they had to show where I’d travelled from. Since there was already a dot from Brisbane, I placed mine at Mackay so I could be special.
Back out at the car, I got my bike off the roof and replaced the rear tube which had gone flat so I could ride over to the zoo and check out some park features along the way. In the process, I discovered another of my spokes had broken, probably from the riding in Crested Butte. Just another thing I’ll have to fix. Like a good little student, I packed some lunch, using a cold beer as an ice brick for my lunch box, then I was off.
The park was beautifully green and had plenty of public space that I’m sure is used for all sorts of events, but it just seems like a nice place to hang out on any occasion. As I got closer to the zoo, the density of people and parked cars increased, along with the number of prams and strollers. Being a free zoo, I’d assumed that it would maybe have a pen of chickens and a bird cage but when I walked through the doors, I quickly learned this would not be the case. It was just like any other zoo that you would pay up to $50 to get in to. After a quick chat with the ladies at the information desk, I was off to wander through the zoo.
I started in the butterfly enclosure where kids were walking with their arms outstretched hoping that one of the colourful winged creatures would choose them as a perch. They had some beautiful tropical flowers in this enclosure which reminded me of the bright pink hibiscus we had at home.
Outside, I got a bit lost thanks to not quite understanding the map and stood in some gum for good measure. Not disheartened, I followed the crowds to the rainforest area of the zoo where they took everyone from South America, Africa then Asia. There were some weird and wonderful creatures here, especially the big rodents and pigs with bulky bodies and curious ear attachments. The displays were brilliant with all the artificial waterfalls and plants creating a completely different world from the one just outside.
At the hippo’s home, there was a big group of children supervised by a couple of young adults who did their best to make sure everyone got a turn to look at the giant hippo floating just the other side of the glass, but they weren’t too successful. They are definitely huge creatures, but I can’t imagine them ever moving in earnest or with any speed they just seemed so relaxed, especially with the hundreds of fish loitering around them in the water.
After making friends with the elephants who were trying to choose between eating and cooling themselves down by spraying water over their bodies, my trip to the three different continents was over and I head towards “Seal Sound”. There was a seal show on at 2:30pm and my timing was perfect to go buy my $4 ticket and have lunch. I sat in the cool of a mister and ate my lunch while doing animal watching of a different kind. It was school holidays so of course the zoo was busy but I swear I didn’t see a single fit person or family. In this heat, I can’t imagine the discomfort the big people felt between their rolls and whenever I saw a fat kid (more often than not), it just made me sad.
I was saved by the bell when the gates opened for the show so I went straight in to get me a good seat. Centred towards the back of the arena, I enjoyed the cool wind generated by two huge fans overhead. It was half an hour to wait until the show started so I did a bit of research about what my free camping options were in Canada. I’d always just assumed that freecampsites.net was an American thing, but to my amazement, there are plenty of entries for Canada as well! That will make my life easier. Even better than that, I managed to find another free camping website that offered up sites not listed on the one I already knew about.
When the show started, I put my phone away and gave the seal on stage my full attention. She had to be the most beautiful seal I’d ever seen with a silky black coat and not a scratch on her. Her handler had her dialled too, she behaved perfectly with the slightest of hand signals. One boy was made very happy when he was asked to the front of the stage to help with the show, getting the opportunity to instruct the seal and feed her multitudes of fish.
After a quick intermission, a sea lion took the stage. After seeing the seal flap around on stage, the sea lion looked an absolute giant. He was such a tank, it was almost unbelievable how easily he moved around on land and in the water. The handler walked him all the way around the stage to show how he can walk on all fours then displayed his abilities in the water as well. I was shocked to see him do a handstand on his front flippers on command, raising his tail high over his head to balance on his fins.
After catching a bunch of Frisbees and throwing them into the crowd, the grand finale was a slide down into the water following by a jump through a hoop the handler was holding above the water.
What a brilliant display, I would have paid way more than $4 for the half hour show. A lot of the families went down front afterwards to get photos with the sea lion, but I was straight out and on to see the big animals of the zoo.
Via the bird sanctuary that smelled alarmingly of shit, I was in the open plains of Africa on safari. I saw some skinny-legged gazelles and was happy to see some lazy kangaroos keeping to the shade of the trees in their enclosure. I’m sure it had been years since any of them had travelled fast over an open field since their home was so small which I found a bit sad.
Onto the big animals, I admired the camels and especially enjoyed the zebras with their short manes of hair matching the black and white stripes of their bodies perfectly. At the lion enclosure, the male was getting riled up about something, but the female was nonplussed, chilling out at the top of the mound in their enclosure. The rest of the big cats (panther, jaguar, cheetah, tiger) weren’t of too much interest since they were all sleeping. Thanks to the heat, there wasn’t a whole lot of activity from the animals, which is to be expected.
It had been a couple of hours now so I was ready to have a sit down and get a reprieve from the heat. On my way out, I passed the gorillas, ostrich, emu, giraffes and prairie dogs. The prairie dogs were probably the most entertaining animal of the day, rolling around as they do in the wild and displaying their different personalities.
I picked up my bike from outside the zoo entrance and rode back towards the visitor’s centre. I didn’t have a plan beyond St. Louis so I figured I’d use the airconditioned comfort of the visitor’s centre and their free Wifi to do a bit of research before moving on. Since I had the opportunity, I also caught up on some blogs since Dan’s Mum had sent me an email demanding more episodes in the series that is my life. I aim to please my fans! By the time I was done researching, I found there was nothing much that interested me in the state of Illinois or Iowa so I figured I would head north following the Great River Road which dove in and out of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin. Camping by the great Mississippi definitely had some appeal.
No armed with a plan, I drove out of Forest Park and out of St. Louis. I had considered going into the centre of town to check it out but since it was now 5pm and rush hour, I lost interest and so I went back out the way I’d come, hitting a Walmart on the way to pick up some incense with the hope of ridding my van of the flies that had accumulated from my last camp.
I spoke to Kevin as I drove north, happy to finally be able to catch up with him. As I drove through a small town along highway 76, I saw an Astro van exactly like mine, same colour, same paint damage on the bonnet, Kevin shared my enthusiasm as I shouted in excitement and waved to the owners. They waved back, clearly understanding the passion. At exactly this point, I dropped out of phone service and that was the end of our catch up.
The rest of the drive was nice enough, going through a few small towns on a narrow highway with cornfields either side of it. When I approached the turn off to my free camp, I hoped against all hope that it was a legit spot because I was ready for dinner. Considering my previous luck though, I prepared myself for the worst but there was no need. When I found the turn off, it was a nice little forest area right on the banks of the Mississippi. Unfortunately because of the trash littered everywhere the sites by the water were smelly so I settled for parking at the back of the carpark near the boat ramp and got straight into dinner as I spoke to Dan.
No bugs here! I made an easy dinner of gnocchi, which was brilliant in its simplicity and in its taste. Even better was that I got to enjoy it while watching the British Grand Prix that I’d downloaded while in the Forest Park visitor’s centre. Winning! It was a relatively straightforward race except that Daniel started from the back and there was all sorts of drama in tyre blow ups in the closing laps. Hamilton said he was going to win it and he did it with a grand slam. Only one point now in the championship race, just in time for the halfway mark too!
What a perfect night, I sat outside for the remainder of it, practicing my Spanish. I started a fire to keep the night mozzies away and was perfectly content. The camp had character thanks to the few boats that passed by on the river in front of me and the trains that passed through on the tracks behind me, insisting on blazing their horns. I accepted that I’d be on for an interrupted sleep.