Today we left St Louis for Farmington, MO. We went almost directly south along the border with Illinois. Farmington is not on any direct route from St. Louis to DC, but we are going there to teach.
Farmington is small, fairly rural town — though it is the capital of the county Francois County. We biked through the downtown and some of the neighborhoods when we arrived. There was a short but very charming main street with many restaurants and local businesses. Farmington contrasts very strongly with St. Louis.
We are staying at Al’s Place Bike Hostel, which is a really nice bike hostel that gives cyclists a great place to stay. Farmington is on the TransAmerica Bike Trail so there are a lot of bike shops and facilities for cyclists here. The hostel was founded in 2005 in memory of a well-liked local cyclist, Al Dziewa. The hostel is in a very picturesque building that used to be the county jail.
The main room of the bike hostel. The jersey on the right is Al’s and the jersey down the hall on the wall belonged to an Olympic gold medalist.
In fact, the building is prominent enough that it showed up as the first image in my Google search for “Farmington, MO.“
This is the first bike hostel our team has stayed in, but we are all really liking it so far!
-Leo