Day 51 (7/22): St. Louis, MO; Day Off

Prettty rough getting up this morning…had an optional breakfast downstairs of donuts…which the “Blackman Family Reunion” folks kept trying to come over and ask for some…ummm, sorry, we don’t have enough?? Kinda awkward.

Got to go back to bed for a little bit before our lunchtime friendship visit which was glorious. Around noon we headed over to the St. Louis Science Center…super cool place with a planetarium, a bunch of spaceflight exhibits on the Ansari X prize (won by SpaceShip 1 of the Burt Ratan/Richard Branson fame, for all those geeky folk like myself), a sweet dinosaur exhibit and a bunch of other engineering themed things….right up my alley :-)

Met up with some folks of the St. Louis Arc who were already eating lunch down in the food court. Britton and I took two of the ladies around to see the dinosaur exhibit which was pretty cool, but not long after Steve was already rounding us up to take a picture. Turns out there was a mixup in the plans and we weren’t actually having a sponsored lunch here so we had to head out a little earlier than expected. So we said our goodbyes and piled back into the vans.

Cruised over to Mickey D’s for some creasy hamburgers and fries…some kids tried to make off with a box of Gatorades we had left near the van…pretty hilarious.

Next up we headed over to an indoor go-kart raceway where Jay’s parents had bought us all a free race...after a cheesy orientation we suited up and hit the track…Andrew came out the big winner with the fastest laptime…though my 10th place finish in the team overall is nothing to gloat about I did have the most consistent lap times, which is better, I think.

The mood of the day took a downturn when we got back to the hotel. Steve called a team meeting to inform us that Country was being sent home for multiple policy violations…overtly for not coming back to lodging last night as he was out with his girlfriend who had come to visit, but other things had been building up to that. All in all not a fun situation…it was tough to see Country go, we’ll definitely miss him…but I respect Steve’s decision for the greater good of the team.

For dinner we headed over to Ozzie’s, a nice sports bar restaurant where Matt from yesterday was sponsoring our meal. Had a delicious chicken salad (decided a bit more healthy eating was in order) while we all caught up on sports highlights.

After dinner we had our main team meeting to go over the next few days of riding into Indiana. Took care of some laundry in the hotel when we were done and now its time to hit the hay!