Temps were in the 50's & 60's on a day without a cloud in the sky. The terrain had more and longer hills than recent days.
I passed a couple wineries and the corresponding vineyards. I went by a couple corn fields that were coming in. The tallest crop was knee high. The wildlife I saw today included a deer, a wild turkey a ground hog and some roosters.
Gas is much cheaper in Missouri than Illinois. The best price was $3.40 for regular midway between St Louis and Jefferson City. Just before the end of the walk I passed a private drive that has a stream flowing across it.
Dee and Leonard Wojtysiak hosted me for the last 7 days. That is the third highest number of days that someone has hosted me. They live in a house that they remodeled themselves which is really cool. They are both extremely active in the Illinois Trekkers AVA Club with Leonard having been a former president.
Dee is an excellent cook who makes enough world class meatballs during the holidays to last the entire year. They made sure I saw the local sights including taking me to my third prayer breakfast of the walk and the second fish fry. On the return from one of our walks Leonard gave me a tour of the Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL which is beautiful. The club has a year round AVA walk there and a special walk each year on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to see the holiday lights.
Dee and Leonard had just returned from two months in Australia. They made a complete circuit of the country hitting every state and territory. Leonard and I had plenty of time to discuss their vacation on our five walks together.
They also took me on the "death by ice cream" tour that Joan would have loved. The Grand Finale occurred on Sunday night when their son and daughter-in-law invited me to join their family for a delicious meal. For desert they prepared Decedent Chocolate Desert Pasta which they had purchased while they were in Australia. This consisted of pasta that had been impregnated with real Cocoa from the Netherlands. The pasta was boiled, drained and served hot over homemade ice cream. I really liked it. Everyone ate theirs but I think most were a little weirded out by the unusual combo.
Dee, Leonard and Diane Holdiman logged some serious miles staging me and my car. I will miss seeing the Arch daily on the staging runs.
Trivia answer:
The signs are unique numbers that are used to identify individual property locations when you place a call for emergency police, fire or ambulance services.
Trivia question:
In grade school the most powerful top 40 AM radio station at night in Ohio was clear channel 50,000 watt WLS out of Chicago. Later on while at flight training in Pensacola amazingly WLS was still the strongest AM top hits signal at night.
What does WLS stand for?
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