moonlight rambling

well, we just got in last night, back from our trip to St. Louis--we went to see Emily's grandparents, and to ride in the 41st annual Moonlight Ramble through St. Louis: a 20-mile bikeride that starts at midnight & goes through some of the city, even a little of downtown. The ride (which supposedly had 10,000 participants! (& it certainly seemed like it at times, like when we started out pedalling so slow walking would've been faster . . . though it did thin out once we hit a couple hills . . .)), benefitted some sort of hostelling organization, so that's cool I guess. You can read all about that org at the Moonlight Ramble website, and here's an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the ride.

Anyway, before we left I showed Mimi my newly (sort-of) decorated office (which is all mine! supposedly a name plate's on the way too!):

here's my at my desk; and over on my 2-seater couch (!), you can see my giant phd diploma sitting there . . .

so after enjoying Emily's grandparents' company Friday night, we spent Saturday with Todd & Brandy, who showed us Todd's apartment, took us to Broken Flowers (A+) and some tasty Greek food; then it was on to the bike ride


Todd shows us what's in his fridge


Todd's been working on this (surprisingly heavy) ball of rubber-bands for quite some time . . .


Mimi waits as our group gets their bikes ready (that's Todd re-inflating a tire)


one last smoke before the ride


getting ready to go, 12:05 am


Brandy and Todd, 1:27am


Yancy & Mimi, 2:31am, only about 4 miles to go!


beautiful scenery in downtown St. Louis


and a smoke to finish it all off, 2:56am--though I should mention that we probably didn't start until after 12:30, so it really wasn't 3 hours of riding . . .


& when we finished, they gave us beer!


our whole group, many of whose names I--being a bit scattered at 3am--have forgotten


the next day, we enjoyed talking with Emily's grandparents, Thelma and Larry Hughes, a couple of great people (and they gave us tomatoes from their garden!)