Date Weekend: Blue was the Theme! (Blues Game and Little Blue Trace Trail -- Independence, MO)

My Sweetie and I made what has become our annual trip to St Louis to see my Beloved St Louis Blues! Saturday night they were playing the 1st place overall team in the NHL, the Anaheim Ducks.

The trip down on Saturday was aided by a high tailwind of 15+ MPH to the tune of an average of 38 MPG for the 300+ mile trip in our little Honda Fit! 

Before the game we checked into our hotel out in upscale Creve Couer, Mo.

It is not showing in this picture, but apparently the city logo is a fleur-de-lis above a heart with a crack down the middle of it, as it was carved into several of the concrete columns at this same intersection.  Google tell me that Creve Couer means "broken heart" in French. That is very interesting to me.   ~~H

Hard to believe that picture is right in the middle of a bridge over I-270

Typically we have tried to stay at the Drury Inn down by Union Station so we could just walk to the game.  The Creve Couer Drury was having a special and our room was almost half what it would have been at the Union Station Drury.  Love that they offer a parking garage since we travel with our bikes in the car.

We arrived early enough that after checking in we headed out to get some dinner before the game. We had enjoyed the Chevy's Tex Mex when we were here last summer, so we decided to eat there again.  There was one just down Olive Blvd from our hotel.   It was in an interesting renovated old building with what looked like a garage door in the side.

We asked our waitress what the history of the building was.  It was a renovated school bus barn. They had lots of neat nostalgic items placed around as you can see in the below picture.

No, I'm not the "neat old nostalgic item". I hope. ~~H

 

We actually looked up our blog on our phones before we ordered to see if we had noted what I had ordered last summer when we were here, because I wanted to order the same thing.  And dang if we didn't actually have it in there.  So, I guess even if we are the only ones that read our blog, it came in handy.  LOL 
http://just-keep-pedaling.blogspot.com/2013/07/grants-trail-st-louis-mo.html

The food was excellent!  As difficult as it is for me to say, You can't go wrong with Chevy's!  :)
  
(He's a Ford Mustang fan, America.......  ~H)

The quantity of black beans here was almost lethal, however.

After enjoying our scrumptious meal,  we headed to the Scottrade Center for the Blues Game.  We got there early enough to take some pictures before the game started.

This was not a case of lackluster attendance. We were one of the first ones in the door.  The game was sold out.

The Blues were on ice the first 2 periods, falling behind 3-0!!  In the third Anaheim seemed to run out of gas after having played the Blackhawks on Friday night. The Blues tried to make a comeback falling just short in a 3-2 loss.  Even though they lost I truly enjoy the experience of seeing them in person.  To anyone who has never attended an NHL hockey game,  I encourage you to attend.  I stress it being an NHL game you attend.  I am not really a fan of the minor league local hockey as I enjoy the skill more than the fighting that can digress in those games.

After the game we returned to our hotel, and planned out our Sunday. It was suppose to be dry and warmer on Sunday, so we hoped to ride our bikes on the Creve Couer Lake Bikeway over to where it connected with the Katy Trail. When we awoke Sunday morning, ate our scrumptious Drury breakfast, the temperature was still sub 30 degrees (umm, yeah.  NINE degrees is definitely sub-30 -- and not happening ~~H) so we changed our plans and decided to wait and ride in the Kansas City area.  The weather forecast showed by early afternoon that the temperature there should be just shy of 60!

She takes over the narrative: 

So before we left the hotel, S looked up any trails that might be on the east side of Kansas City and found notation on the Kansas Cyclist blog of the Little Blue Trace Trail in Independence, MO, so we loaded up and headed west. As we started to close in on Independence on I-70, she says to he, "Do you know where to go to find the trailhead?" He replies "I have an idea."

Oh boy.

So, she pulls out the iPhone, pulls up the Little Blue Trace Trail on TrailLink where there is even a button to click to show the map.  Which it did.  And that's where technology failed her.  The iPhone flat would not cooperate with zooming in enough to see what roads the trailheads actually were near.  Not helpful.  Add to that, the 32 ounce drink that had been consumed since St. Louis was making the need to find a bathroom high on the list of priorities. So, those 2 factors combined to ensure that she of little patience got a wee bit short of temper as we found ourselves on a long stretch of bypass with no crossroads, no trailheads and no gas stations/bathrooms in sight.

At that point I had to insist that we call a halt to this trailhead goosechase nonsense, and find me a gas station with a bathroom. A couple miles up I-470, QT finally put me out of my misery.

So, that little problem resolved, he suggests that if the iPhone is not cooperating with zooming the map enough to allow us to see the road names, let's try hotspotting the iPhone and using my Kindle to see if the bigger screen on that would make the map function better.  He's a smart cookie, that husband of mine.

Finally, we found this link to a PDF that showed "Hartman Heritage Center Parking" for the Little Blue Trace Trail.  Well, that was something at least. So, we backtracked 4 or so miles back to I-70 and then got off I-70 at Little Blue Parkway.  The landmark you are looking for here is the bank with the dual-phallic awning.
 

I just can't for the life of me fathom what committee said "Yes, those would look awesome right at the front door of our bank. That's the statement we want to make."  But that's neither here nor there, I suppose.  It does make it easy to know what exit you need to take off of I-70 to get to the trailhead parking, we know that now.

Once on Little Blue Parkway after exiting I-70, cross over I-70 to the Hartman Heritage Mall. In the mall parking lot, take your first right.  You will see some playground equipment and even this sign (finally!)..........

I was not impressed with how not well-marked this thing was and how difficult it was to find, nor how hard it was to even find information on where to park on the Internet...... but that can be said for most trails we have ridden so far, honestly.  And that, my friends, is the topic of a whole 'nother blog post yet to be written, so stay tuned to this station.

But with all that hassle behind us, we put it aside and set out to enjoy our bike ride on a beautiful winter day, even if it was a bit windy!

The trail was seeing a lot of use today.


It is a nice urban trail that follows along the Little Blue River.......

A gaggle of geese right there. Honk honk!

 From where we parked, it followed alongside the river, behind the mall, beside a hotel, under I-70 and through suburbia.

 The trail started out paved in the area around the mall and under most of the bridges.

Other than that, it is a natural surface (very fine chat, if any at all)......

I'm not sure this first warning in red on this sign was necessarily always heeded........

Based on some of the ruts we encountered......

There were still areas that were pretty soupy even as we rode today, so I suppose there were 4 fingers pointing right back at us, huh? :)

Parts of the river were also still frozen.

Somebody painted the lid of this drainage pipe (I guess that's what it is, anyway).  Too cute!

And that was our mid-winter ride on the Little Blue Trace Trail.  We plan to come back and ride more of it this summer.

After ride dinner at Cheddar's but we failed to get pictures.  We just snarfed it down. LOL

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