Category Archives: biking trail

Riverwoods Trail



What’s left of it anyway. A part of the expanding Missouri River Greenway, it’s a frequent victim of the equally expanding Missouri River. A section of the trail regularly drops of into the river in the early spring floods. This time, they may have given up on rerouting it again.

It’s accessible still, linked at either end to the Earth City Levee trail. It’s mostly deserted today. Hidden beneath the roar of the Blanchette Bridge, it shelters its flocks of birds and quietly monitors the banks of Old Town St Charles.

Route 66 State Park

I forgot how hard it is to get here. There’s no access from I-44 west. I have to take the next exit and backtrack along the access road. It’s colder today, barely skimming 40. I’m wishing for my hat I left in the truck, but then keep taking off my gloves to write or take pictures.

The park incorporates a section of old Route 66 and is bounded by I-44 and the Meramec River. I wander a cracked and deserted ghost town road as the highway roars only yards way. Rounding the inner loop trail, it fades away in a chorus of birds

So many birds, so impossible to capture. Marshes line the trail, alive with calls and sudden burst of color. A brilliant cardinal in a thick green cedar, rests so quietly he looks like a ceramic Christmas tree ornament. I catch my breath and reach for my camera … and he’s gone before I can lift to my eye. Blue jays, robins, and so many I don’t even know, taunt me throughout the morning, pausing just long enough to be seen, before soaring off to the next hidden grove. Only the owl held just long enough to react to the click of my shutter.