The Moonlight Ramble is a late-night bike ride through the city (and county) of St. Louis that serves as a fundraiser to help build a hostel in the old Mullanphy Emigrant Home. The past two rides had us starting downtown and heading to Forest Park and back. This year was a little bit different.
Starting at the Muny, we rode through the park before emerging by Barnes on Clayton Road. We cut over on Sarah to Manchester and rode down Manchester / Choteau to Jefferson. Making a left on Jefferson, we crossed over the Jefferson viaduct before heading back west on Market street. At the end of Market, we got onto Forest Park Parkway and we took that all the way to downtown Clayton before turning around and returning to the park.
Some notes about the ride:
- The girls claim that it was hillier than the previous years, although we did not have to deal with Art Hill, or the climb back up Market Street. In all fairness, the western portions of the parkway are surprisingly hilly.
- The route avoided the eastbound intersection of Forest Park Parkway and Market, a windy, hilly, narrow, pot-holed stretch that had bad accidents the two rides prior.
- Riding into Clayton at night is pretty neat.
- Jen is pretty sure that she ran over a frog. She’s getting the jibblies just reading this sentence.
It was a good ride, but it was quite muggy. Late hours and high humidity don’t make for good pictures, but Jen did take some nice artistic shots. Our customary visit to Uncle Bill’s followed. With the late start, the long ride and an overly chatty waitress, we ended up hitting the hay around 5:30 AM, but it was well worth it.