Brewing Up a Good Time

Saturday morning was just as leisurely as Friday morning had been, and I felt much better after a good night's sleep.  

We had another breakfast of bacon, eggs, and coffee before Molly arranged an Uber to take us to Union Station.  Our tickets were for the aquarium at 10:30, and we got there in time to join the line before it got too long.  

The first tanks had fish species indigenous to the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.  I saw one that I was excited to recognize, but when I told Molly it was a gar, she pointed out to me that it was a Mississippi paddle fish.  Oki doki, I learned something new!  But really, don't you think they look the same?!

Paddlefish

Gar fish

The otter tank in St. Louis was much bigger than the one at Oxbow, and we enjoyed watching their antics for quite a while.  Of course, we had to send a text to Captain that we were watching the otters because they are his favorite at the zoo.  We're mean. 

Then it was on to more exotic things like sharks, stingrays, clownfish, whatever kind of fish Dory was in Nemo and also that weird fish from Nemo that had the light hanging down from his forehead.  

The octopus and jellyfish were extremely cool to watch, but the best was the sea turtle.  

After leaving the aquarium, we meandered around the court yard of Union Station.  We didn't feel like doing the Mirror Maze, the ropes course, or mini golf.  If Captain had been along, someone would have had to ride the ferris wheel with him.  

I don't do ferris wheels.  The last time I was on one was on my first date with Captain at the Winona County Fair on July 12, 1985.  Y'all, we got stuck at the top, and I'm terrified of heights.  No, of course I didn't tell him that.  You don't blurt out all your quirks and flaws on the first date!!!  So there we are sitting at the top of the ferris wheel.  I'm trying to quietly and politely hyperventilate while I compose my last will and testament in my head.  

And then Captain started rocking the car.  Yep, I lost my mind right then and there.  I don't think it got so bad as my crying like a baby, but I'm fairly certain there was screaming happening.  I don't remember.  I was traumatized and have blocked it out of my mind.  

Anyway, I digress.  

No one wanted to ride the ferris wheel in St. Louis, and the restaurant we wanted to try for lunch wasn't open yet, so we got some water and just sat in the very pretty courtyard to people watch, which is one of my all time favorite ways to pass the time in new places.  

By the time the Italian place opened up, we weren't the only ones in line but we managed to get a table right away.  We'll call that our splurge meal; the prices were kind of hefty, but the food was excellent!

Our tour of the Budweiser Brewery wasn't until mid afternoon so we took the opportunity to explore the downtown area on foot while the traffic wasn't so crazy.  We went to some shops near the stadium and found some souvenirs for Captain and Cubby.  

We also observed a highly intoxicated person have a loud and vehement argument.  With a statue.  And I think he was losing.  It was scary and amusing all at the same time.  

One of the store clerks recommended walking up to a green area near the government buildings.  It was quite lovely and covered a couple of city blocks.  A lot of mature trees with pathways, water features (not running due to low water levels) and metal or wood artistic sculptures that kids could climb on and explore.  Since it was a Saturday, it was fairly quite, but I would assume that during the week it would be much busier with foot traffic.  

We meandered back toward the stadium area to get a libation and cool off before getting an Uber to the Budweiser Brewery.  Let me just say, they mix their cocktails pretty stoutly down there by the stadium!  

It was finally time to head to the brewery, so we Ubered over there.  We were early enough that we wandered around the gift shop for quite awhile before lining up for the tour.  We all spotted things we wanted to pick up after the tour was over.

I really wanted to see Clydesdales, but there was only one in the stable.  The rest are stabled and trained at the Grant Farm.  Wish we'd known that, but I didn't do enough research I guess.  But the tour was very interesting anyway.   

For instance, did you know that Budweiser is still brewed with the same "family" of yeast that they started with?  Seriously, the yeast is DNA tested every morning to make certain it is the right stuff and hasn't been tampered with.  Only ten people in the entire world know where this yeast is kept.  Why haven't they made a Marvel movie about some crazy bad dude trying to steal the Budweiser yeast?!  The hero could be those goofy frogs that were in the Superbowl commercials years ago.  I need to pitch this to Hollywood!  

We got to see the bottling room and the first thing I thought of was Laverne and Shirley in Milwaukee working in a bottling plant.  Molly didn't have a clue what I was talking about when I said that; made me feel old.  

At the end of the tour, everybody got a free bottle of JUST bottled (i.e. warm) Bud Light.  Gammy and I promptly gave ours to Molly.  Beer is gross.  

Everybody also got free beer at the Biergarten but only Molly partook in that while Gammy and I had water.  We headed back into the gift shop to pick up our gifts and then headed back to the apartment.  

Since it was much cooler and not nearly as humid, we opted to sit in the back yard under the patio umbrella for some good conversation.  When it started getting dark, we moved indoors and had leftover pizza for supper and the last of the wine and seltzers in the fridge.  

I will close it out here because Sunday was just a quiet travel day with nothing exciting happening.  

Thank you for coming along on our trip to St. Louis!  I would recommend it to anyone.  It's a lovely town full of rich history and loads of entertainment.  

Until the next trip, blessings my friends!

An Over-Arching Theme of Fun

See what I did there??  Yeah, I'm cute in my smarty pants!

Since we didn't have to be anywhere until noon on Friday, we were able to enjoy a leisurely start to our day with coffee, conversation, and breakfast at the apartment.  We'd picked up bacon and eggs at Aldi's, so I did the bacon in the oven and made scrambled eggs which set us right up for the rest of the day.  

Funny enough, when we'd ordered pizza the night before, we looked high and low for a pizza cutter because what dwelling in this country wouldn't have a pizza cutter, right?  Nope, never found one and had to go old school with a chef's knife.  Then, when I was looking for a whisk to do the scrambled eggs, I found it underneath the egg whipper.  Story of my life, a day late and a dollar short every time.  

After breakfast and doing the dishes and getting ready, Molly got us an Uber to the riverfront near the arch.  It was a scorcher of a day, so we hit the refreshment stand first.  The waitress was very friendly and I asked--as I always do on my travels--where she would go to eat a casual supper with friends.  She recommended two sandwich places, one more downtown and one in a neighboring district.  We decided to ponder our choices over the day and see how we felt.  

We rode a replica of a Mississippi steam boat named, of course, the Tom Sawyer.  During the one-hour cruise, we learned a lot about the history of St. Louis and it's riverfront enterprises.  I got to take pictures of a barge full of fertilizer being unloaded that I could show Captain when I got home.  He gets a large charge about that stuff.  

It was seriously roasty toasty on the top deck of the boat, and then we decided to hoof it to where we would board the trolley for a tour of downtown.  Yeah, we didn't think that one all the way through.  It was less than a mile but mostly on an uphill slant, in the heat.  Gammy was smart and bought an Italian ice to enjoy on the walk!  What I love about walking through older parts of any city is to see the great architecture that was used in those old buildings.  

We made it to the trolley stop and got in where it was--thank you--air conditioned.  We were joined by another group of four women on a girls' weekend plus a lovely older couple.  Our driver was a hoot as she meandered past the many sights of Saint Louis.

One place we saw but didn't tour (which just means we'll have to go back someday) was the old courthouse where the Dredd Scott case was heard.  I am ashamed to admit that I had to Google that when I got back to the VRBO that night.  I mean, I recognized the name and knew that it had something to do with slavery and the civil war, but nothing more than that.  If you are like me and aren't up on that history, I encourage you to just refresh your memories about it.  There's a reason history repeats itself; it's because we forgot as times goes by.  

Wow, that really wasn't where I meant to go with this.  Let me get back on track.  Hey...that's a great segue into the trolley thing.  Man, I am on fire today!

Okay, so the trolley took us past Union Station which was exciting because that was on our list for Saturday.  There is a huge ferris wheel there I would say comparable to the one at Navy Pier in Chicago.  I didn't ride the one in Chicago and I had no intention of riding the one in St. Louis, either, but it was cool to see. 

The driver pointed out the Anheusher-Busch brewery, also on our list for Saturday.   She also said that if you wanted more of the Clydesdale part of the tour to go to Grant's Farm outside of St. Louis where the horses are kept plus the Busch Mansion is there, and it's a doozy!

We drove down Millionaire's Row which is where all the rich folks built houses back in the day.  Every single building in St. Louis was brick, but these were over-the-top gorgeous structures set back from the street.  They had balconies and porticoes and stone walls.  Whew!

When we drove through the grounds of the St. Louis Museum of History, a wedding party was setting up to take photos.  I wouldn't personally get married on Friday the 13th...but that's just me.  

The trolley drive made an unscheduled stop at the old cathedral and let us explore for about 10 minutes.  

Y'all....oh my word, the sheer stunning artistry of the building and the interior was breathtaking.  The photos of the inside do not do it justice because there isn't a drop of paint on the interior; it is all mosaic tile work.  Are you kidding me right now?!

After that we made a little detour over to a local favorite coffee shop that makes gooey butter cake.  Literally, that's the name.  Gooey Butter Cake.  How good does that sound?!  We didn't get any of that, but the iced coffee was good.  

The other group of ladies on the trolley asked if the driver could take us directly to the Arch after the tour because they had passes for the 4:00 tram ride.  Well, what do you know, so did we?  Well, Gammy and Molly did.  I don't do heights.  The driver was more than happy to take us where we needed to go.  

While my peeps were up in the arch, I stayed in the lobby and played on my phone.  The next thing I know I'm getting a Snapchat from Molly that says "We're stuck!"  Oh geez louise!  Yeah, while I was trying to swallow my heart back down out of my throat she called and said, "Just kidding.  We're really just down in the museum, come down here."  She's so mean!

I met them in the lower level museum which was insanely cool.  There were all kinds of maps about the westward expansion of the United States which--again--I was not fluent in.  I mean, I know what the Louisiana Purchase was all about but as far as what territory came in when...yeah, I don't remember.  The period displays of homes from those early eras were jaw-dropping.  Especially since we'd been watching HGTV where every couple has a stroke if they can't have granite counter tops and a massive master en suite.  Those pioneers were just glad to have a roof over there head, even if it was made out of sod!

Once we'd filled ourselves with all the history that we could, we decided it was time for supper.  We settled on the Gramophone, which was one of the recommendations of our friendly waitress at the riverboat.  We got an Uber ride over there, got inside and found a table.

And I couldn't find my phone.  It wasn't in my purse, it wasn't in my pocket.  I went outside to see if it had fallen on the sidewalk when we got out of the Uber.  Nope.  

Whereas I would have just gone to Verizon and reported my phone as lost/stolen and gotten a new one, Molly said to wait and let her message the Uber driver to see if it was in his car.  Why yes, yes it was, and he would turn around and bring it back to us.  

Don't tell me there aren't good people in this world!

With that thorny little problem solved, we ordered sandwiches which were fabulous!  I love that a lot of places now give you the option of ordering a half sandwich or just not ordering the side of fries.  I can do one or the other (entrée or side) but not both.  I didn't take any picture of the inside of the restaurant, but it was super cool with hammered copper ceilings and that fantastic industrial look with the exposed ducts and stuff.  I just love that.  Oh well.  

Molly got us an Uber back to the VRBO and it was jammies and HGTV time.  We decided to do a load of laundry since we had sweated through everything we'd worn that day.  By the time I took that down to the basement washer/dryer and got back upstairs, I was getting chills and a fever.  Great.  Luckily I had bought some Zycam gummy things, so I broke them out.  It was a rough night, though, and I went to bed early while Molly and Gammy stayed up.  I think they had a nice conversation because I vaguely remember hearing them murmuring as I was going to sleep.  

Day 2:  also a success!

Meet Me In St. Louis

Whooo-eee, did we whoop it up in Saint Louis, y'all (they say that down there)!  

Not that the trip wasn't without its pitfalls, mostly due to my...shall we say...stupidity.  Yes, I said stupid.  I know that's not a nice word, but I can say it about myself.  

So I had this trip planned down to the minute and the penny.  I had airline tickets purchased ahead of time, I had VRBO reservations confirmed, I had tickets purchased and confirmed for the Arch, a riverboat cruise, a trolley tour, and a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.  Folks, I was on fire!

The night before we were flying out, though, I went down in a blaze of (not) glory.  I went to do the e-check in thing for our Delta tickets.  As I'm talking out loud to myself and saying whose name was on what ticket, it hit me like  a ton of brick (which was appropriate, as we shall discuss later in this chapter) that the name on my ticket was Jude, not Judith.  

Many bad words.  Call Delta immediately and wait on hold.  And wait.  And wait.  And wait.  

Ninety minutes later I said more bad words and hung up.  I had been scoping the website at Delta and there were a multitude of links that said "cancel your ticket here."  

Well, all right then, that seems easy enough.  Nope, wouldn't let me do that.  Apparently it was too close to the departure time, which is stupid (yep, said it again) because you can't even check in until 24 hours ahead of time!!  

However, in their defense, they did email me a confirmation MONTHS ago with the wrong name on it, and I just didn't clue in, so it was on me all the way, not them.  

Okay, I bit the bullet and decided I would just book another ticket or I'd get left behind.  That went through fine, but now I had two tickets in my name(s).  Too bad, so sad.  Didn't care as long as I could plunk my ignorant butt into a seat and fly to Saint Louis.  

Which I could and did.  We landed in Saint Louis just before lunch.  We are not big city people used to cabs, light rail, Uber, and all that good stuff, but we flagged down a taxi for a ride to our VRBO.  

Can we say "ouch"?!  That ain't cheap, people!!  But we got there, and that's what counts.  

We had the sweetest, cutest, most comfortable little garden apartment in the history of garden apartments!  Don't you just love the brick?  Every single house that we saw in all of our meanderings was made of brick.  I don't believe we saw one clapboard house at all.  Apartment buildings, homes, businesses...all brick.  It was pretty awesome.

Thursday afternoon and evening was seriously just chilling at our VRBO.  We called and had pizza delivered, and then got the bright idea to have booze delivered.  I didn't even know they did that, but I guess Door Dash is for more than just food!  

Now we were cooking with Crisco.  Does anyone even use Crisco anymore?  Sorry, I digress...

There was a very nice flat panel TV in a very comfortable living room, so we tuned in HGTV and started binging.  

Anyone who has heard about our girls' trip to Chicago when Molly was in high school knows that this is our M.O.  We are locked up right and tight by 8 p.m., in our jammies, drinking our alcohol of choice, and watching HGTV. 

We really got into the show Home Town with Erin and Ben Napier out of Laurel, Mississippi.  By the time the weekend was over and we'd seen three out of five season, we all considered ourselves experts.  Wink, wink.  

Not only that, but I came away with some seriously cool ideas for my remodel-the-kitchen-someday file.  

Anyway, after we'd relaxed around the apartment for the better part of the afternoon, we decided we needed to stock some snacky stuff in the fridge.  There was an Aldi about half a mile away, so we decided we could walk.  

Y'all, don't try to walk anywhere in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the middle of August at 4:30 in the afternoon.  You might as well be swimming, the humidity is so heavy!  After we got back with our two bags of stuff that we made Molly carry because she is young and fit, we decided that Uber was going to be our friend the remainder of the weekend.  

With that in mind, we picked a place in our neighborhood for supper, and Molly did the Uber app thing.  I'm so glad we had her along because she is one of the smart girls who can figure stuff like that out.  I'd have ended up walking because I wouldn't be able to figure the app out.  

As we were riding toward the little bar/grill place, I mentioned that the sky was looking rather ominous with dark gray clouds and rather stiff winds.  

Sure enough, it wasn't long after we got seated in the restaurant that she let loose and it was wild.  Wind, rain, lightning, thunder...we go the whole show.  But it seemed to cut the humidity a little bit after it settled down.  

We Ubered back to the apartment and returned to our regularly scheduled programming of jammies and HGTV for a couple of hours before heading to bed.  

Day One in Saint Louis:  success!