[I would have posted this last night, but the DSL connection was very very slow (to the point of unusability). It is much better this morning.]
We have arrived safely in St. Louis.
The aesthetics of flying continue to go downhill. Both legs of the flights were sardine cans, 757s and 737s packed to the rafters. I remember the days when flying was comfortable… not any more! Mercifully, the process at LAX was easy. It was my first time checking baggage since 9/11, and United had these nifty self-check-in units, so the process went very smooth. TSA was organized, and the wait through the security line wasn’t bad, although both gf_guruilla and I had something in our carry-ons that made them want to hand-check them—after a second pass through, everything was fine. STL looks to be less organized; we’ll find out when we leave.
Our rental car is a Kia Rio, from Enterprise. Nice, albeit a little underpowered. The folks at Enterprise were extremely friendly.
We got together with my long time friend Linda R. out here. She’s the daughter of my mom’s best friend; Linda has known me all my life (and even before :-)). We’ll be spending a batch of time with her. We met her when we had dinner.
We scored on the hotel. About $45/night for 2 queen beds, a breakfast buffet, FREE DSL!, in a nice suburb, full cable channels.
That’s it for now. The rest of the family is still asleep. I’ll wake them shortly so we can get breakfast and go visit things. Not sure what we’ll do today yet: it will either be St. Charles, the Arch, or Forest Park.
