Bicycle Trails of St. Louis and the Metro East, including the iconic mile-long Chain of Rocks Bridge, reserved exclusively for foot and bicycle traffic.
The Chain of Rocks Bridge was once part of the famous highway 66 that crossed the United States as one of the greatest highways of its time. Only two lanes wide, in recent years it became hopelessly obsolete after becoming incapable of handling the huge volume of traffic required and so it was transformed into a sensational crossing point for bicycle trails on the Illinois side of the Mississippi and another trail that goes all the way to the Gateway Arch on the Missouri side of the river.
Back on the Illinois side of the river there's over 100 miles of bicycle trails where cars, motorcycles, and all other motorized vehicles are strictly forbidden. The Chain of Rocks Bridge is a mile long, and it's being maintained to serve those in search of solitude and beauty where one is unmolested by such noisy intrusions.
Contrast what the shoe symbolizes here in Thailand
to this network of trails paid for by the U.S. tax payer. The night before I took the picture of the shoe a man had both shoes knocked off his feet into a pool of his own blood by a drunken motorcycle driver who hit him as he tried to cross the street.
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