After almost three weeks of cooling my heals in St. Louis, it feels really good to be back on the bike again. As we started riding out of St. Louis on Monday morning, I was a little apprehensive that days off the bike, combined with a heavy weekend of partying with old friends, might have left me in poor shape for a fifty mile day. I could definitely tell that I had spent some time off the bike, but it wasn't that bad; by yesterday (day 3), I was feeling pretty much back to 'normal.'

Our three days went by easily and pleasently enough. The sprawling St. Louis suburbs soon gave way to much more pleasant countryside, and by the time we reached Arnold, MO, we had escaped all remnants of suburbia. We paused in Arnold to eat some sardines before continuing on.

We rode as far as the wonderfully named town of Festus before deciding to call it a day. There wasn't any camping in town, so we made our first attempt at some under-the-radar, guerilla style camping. This is what a lot of bike touring folks refer to as 'stealth camping,' but I didn't feel particularly stealthy pushing my eighty pound bike through fields of high grass and weeds, all the while totally exposed to commercial and residential buildings. Still, things worked out well enough and we found a flat, secluded area to put up our tents. I didn't get any kind of adrenaline rush out of this type of camping, but its free, and for that reason alone I'm sure that it will play a part in my bike camping future.

Days two and three of our trip have already been covered well by Nate, which is good, since I don't really have anything to say about them. Day two was pleasant and easy, and yesterday was kind of tough. We had decent weather and pleasant rodes to ride on, but the seventy five miles that we covered was probably a bit more than we should have attempted this early in the trip. The day ended with that completely spent, exhausted feeling that comes after a really long day in the saddle. Fortunately, we had a warm, indoor place to sleep and a home cooked meal to look forward to.

We took today off and stuck around Cape Girardeau, which is great, since it has been raining all damn day. Tomorrow we'll take off, rain or shine, and cover the fifty miles between here and Charleston, MO, where we'll be staying at a private campground. Again, I'm really grateful to be back on the road, and I'm glad that Nate seems to be just as enthusiastic about the trip as I am.