From the road - getting around town

Tonight, I am staying in the Fairfield Inn and Suites in St. Charles, MO. The city of St. Charles seems quaint and nice but there's always the ugly side of the city. This other side of the city is home only to hotels, Cracker Barrel, and pavement. Trying to go for a run is nearly impossible when leaving from hotels on the other side. Typically, as is the case today, your only option is to run on the access road parallel to the interstate. Sure, you'll keep a good pace knowing that you have to be prepared to dive to the safety of some corporate lawn should a Ford pickup careen around the corner, but it's not very relaxing.

Today, I drove to Lindenwood University's campus to run. This proved to be a good idea but it left me a bit disappointed. Is there such low demand from pedestrians for basic accommodations (i.e. sidewalks)? It seems as though we have, as a nation, tacitly decided that we need cars, buses, or trains to get us from point A to point B, even if point A and B are a five minute walk apart.

Now that Laine has relearned how to ride a bike, we have been trying to make the transition from biking for fitness to biking for transportation. We spent Sunday morning and afternoon biking from place to place. We even biked out to Buffalo Wild Wings, which is on the "other" side of Bloomington-Normal mind you, to watch football. It seemed like an odd thing to do and it wasn't easy. We had to take back roads to avoid four lane traffic and all that comes with it (people lashing out with insults of all kinds (people really resent foot and bicycle traffic to an unhealthy degree)) to make it to Buffalo Wild Wings. I should point out that there was another bike chained up when we got there, so this is not an original idea, just rare.

I hope that we will move toward, instead of away from, urban planning that takes non-motorists into account. Although it was not very easy to get where we needed by bike, it was fun. We enjoyed the sunny fall weather and I feel like we added something to our day that had been missing. It's so easy to never go outside anymore and I'm realizing that we should make a conscious effort to get outdoors more in the future. Maybe one time I'll bring my bike with me when I travel. I'll lock it to a rocking chair when I eat at the Cracker Barrel.