Cycling & Wander-ing

What a fantastic weekend. It started on Friday with a bike ride followed by the annual St. Gallen Honky Tonk Festival. The festival has a simple premise of ~30 bars around St. Gallen with live music and a single cover charge. This isn't a festival I usually enjoy, but this year was exceptional. I joined Ossie and his girlfriend for some Irish folk and "kick-ass rock and roll" before stumbling upon an incredible blues band. The guitarist was Italian and honoured greats such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix with his own virtuoso style. Fantastic!

On Saturday I joined Antonia for a bike ride through the Toggenburg from Wil to Mogelsberg (to visit Bryan) and back. This was the first real summer day of the year and I got the sunburn to prove it. On Saturday night I played a few games of pool with Bryan.

On Sunday I joined some hikers from wanderforum.ch for a hike near Baar, Switzerland to the Hoellgrotten. It was a leasurely pace through beautiful scenery followed by a walk through a cave with stalagmites and stalactites (the Hoellgrotten). What I found interesting about the Hoellgrotten was the root of a maple tree that had penetrated the 2m thick ceiling of the cave, and then grew another 3m(?) to the pool of water below. I met a number of great people and I hope to join them again in the future.