I have been reading a lot lately. Ever since I learned how to read I have had my nose in a book, as my late grandfather used to always tell me. Every year as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter I find myself craving good stories to keep me occupied. I am sort of embarrassed to admit that on the weekends I can spend a whole day just reading. Really I will read anything that keeps my mind entertained, I am not necessarily picky about the exact subject matter. I do find myself drawn to a lot of non-fiction writing, and of course, travel writing. But not all travel writing is created equal.

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Finally the fall weather is starting to creep into Missouri. The highs during the days are in the low 70's and at night with the windows open a cool breeze makes sleeping with a warm comforter necessary. I love this weather. This is exactly how the weather was when i visited the tiny island of Bornholm in Denmark one spring while in college.

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Like I have said before I love food, and I believe travel enhances that love. I know there are some people that will drive two hours just to get a White Castle burger, and while I have never been that type of person I can admire the devotion of said travelers. Cuisine travel is becoming a hot market for tour companies with people traveling to Italy where they learn to toss pizza dough or taking pastry classes on big name cruise ships. People love food and good stories and when you put the two together by traveling you have a winning combination.

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This is how weird my stream of consciousness thinking can be. Today is national talk like a pirate day, so my immediate thought was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland. I didn't think about the movies or Johnny Depp, but I went straight to the original inspiration of the ride. I happen to love the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and Disneyland in general.

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I really should have blogged about his earlier, but word on the street is that Tour of Missouri is going to become an annual event. This is a rare opportunity for people in the states to get a glimpse of professional cycling. The race started this past Tuesday in Kansas City and is set to run 6 stages that travel through out the state. I just watched as the race made it's way down the street in front of my office to it's final stop for this stage in Columbia. Tomorrow the racers will come back to Jefferson City to start the second to last stage which ends in St. Charles. It is a pretty sweet event and although it seems to go by pretty fast, I think it is still a notable and cool experience. So, if you live anywhere close to Jefferson city or along the route to St. Charles you should check it out.The final stage will be a circuit around St. Louis on Sunday. I will be at the kick off of stage 5 tomorrow, so I hope to have more pictures and information after the weekend. In the mean time you can watch the race live on the Tour of Missouri website. This website also has lots of cool route maps and other articles about the racers.

Links:
Live Video
Live Text Updates
Tour Tracker, should have GPS information for the last two stages
ToM Update Dashboard

More images after the break

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I love food. I spend the majority of my day reading food blogs and trying to figure out what I want to bake next. Really my devotion to cuisine makes a lot of sense because travel and food are the perfect marriage. What better way to get to know an area, a country, a town, etc then by sampling the local cuisine. Alton Brown from the Food Network has an awesome show Feasting on Asphalt that takes exploring road food to a new level. There will be many blog entries dedicated to food, because what you eat while you travel is nearly as important as who you travel with. One food and travel obsession from my childhood is especially vivid; the quest for vending machines.

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For some reason I have always loved bears. Growing up I had armfuls of stuffed bears and they still happen to be one of my favorite zoo attractions. When we started traveling out west I was excited about the prospect of actually seeing a bear in the wild. I know they are dangerous, but just one passing glimpse from a car window would be enough for me. Some mornings we would wake up from camping in Wyoming or Colorado, and there would be paw prints in the dirt or trash strewn about, but it was the only evidence that a bear had been in the area.

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I was surprised last week to find that Gadling, a popular travel blog, recommended the Lake of the Ozarks as a popular Labor Day destination. Since I have lived in a fairly close proximity to the lake all of my life it is easy for me to forget the wide scope of tourists that actually visit the lake each year. In all honesty I spent a good majority of my life trying to avoid the lake, because driving through the main strip it appears to be somewhat of a tourist trap. However, when I went to college I met a very dear friend from the Chicago area, and her family owns a condo at the lake. I have been fortunate over the past couple of years to become a surrogate addition to this family and thus have gotten to know the lake a little bit better.

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I am homesick. What’s particularly funny about that statement is that I am homesick for a place that has never actually been my home. My mom and older brother and his family live in Orange County California. They have only all migrated out to the West Coast in the past four years, and it is still foreign to me that we are so far apart. I have been out to visit them four times, and it is sort of an odd combination to be staying with your family and being on vacation at the same time. I guess it is an added benefit to be able to spend time with the people you love the most and explore a very cool area of California at the same time.

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One of my best friends from college is from Ontario, and although she is working on her doctorate in "the states" we rarely get a chance to see each other. However, this summer she was working at a children's hospital in Atlanta and we vowed to meet halfway for a weekend. Long story short neither of us had the money to shell out for a hotel in Memphis, which we thought to be a decent half-way mark. Just when we were about to give up on the idea of reunion, I had an idea. What if we picked a location a little closer to her, like Nashville and then camped. Thus, we ended up at the Nashville KOA within spitting distance to the famous Opryland.

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