Tag: st-louis

 
Today, we visited the St. Louis Science Center. The planetarium portion was “ehhh…”, but the science center was really nice. They had a great display of computer history, including a chart of the original four nodes of the Arpanet. Small & Feisty enjoyed the exhibits about the body and recycling, and gf_guruilla and I enjoyed a science show that used liquid nitrogen.

We also drove back along DelMar, and saw some of the ritzy Jewish neighborhoods in St. Louis.

Dinner was Steak and Shake, a mid-west/southern chain that, in my eyes, is the In-N-Out of the Midwest. Yummmy.

Tomorrow, we’re planning to visit the Soulard Farmers Market.

On the head front: I’ve had a headache off-and-on today. Hopefully, we can get to bed earlier tonight: we got Small & Feisty a sleep mask, which means we don’t have to sit with the lights out while she falls asleep.

 
First things first. We got them to change our room. We now have a speedy DSL connection. Yea!

Ob Roadgeekiness. We’re staying out in St. Louis County. The overhead signs they put at intersections have the standard county blue pentagon (as we see for county routes out in California) that says “St. Louis County” together with the street name. This is evidently the symbol used for the county road maintenance department.

Today, we went out to the town of St. Charles. This town has a main street with lots of neat stores. Small & Feisty’s favorite store was an old-fashioned general store with lots of candies you don’t find today. We also saw lots of dust-catcher stores, found some wonderful spice stores [links: Old Town Spice Shoppe; Main Street Marketplace] (but not Penzy’s, which is in St. Louis proper), and most importantly, found two quilt stores, one of which was quite spectacular. We also walked down to the Missouri River, and took a tour of the 1^st state capitol of Missouri.

For dinner, we got together with some long-time family friends, Al and Rita H. These were good friends of my mother. We tried to go to dinner in Forest Park, but the wait was over an hour, so we opted to go to “The Hill” instead (“The Hill” is the Italian part of town). We ate dinner at Mama Campisi’s, and had that famous St. Louis creation, Toasted Ravioli. Afterwards, we went to the H’s home and chatted for a while.

All in all, a delightful day and evening.

[8/2: Edited to add some links]

Yesterday, we went out to see the Gateway Arch and the Museum of Westward Expansion. The museum was interesting, with some animated dioramas. The ride to the top of the arch was what I remembered: wait for a tiny, cramped elevator that seats 5. Ride up (4 minutes). See everything through tiny windows. Ride down. But S&F enjoyed it.

As for the day in general: bleh! First, we all got up tired and cranky. This wasn’t a good start to the day. Then in the afternoon, I got a killer headache, so I tried to rest, while gf_guruilla read a cookbook she got, and S&F colored. I finally got the headache knocked down by 7:00 PM, and tried to go online.

Extra-thick molassas slow connection. Even an hour on the phone to tech support didn’t help. It’s barely better this morning. I’m going to complain to the hotel and see if they can get us a room with a “fast” connection, as promised. They haven’t had trouble with the connection in this room, but something must be wrong, and I don’t want to keep frustrating folks whilst I get frustrated at the connection. [PS to ellipticcurve WRT this: can you let Charlie/Robert know I may not be able to sign my timesheet, and there are no changes from what I entered Monday.]

I’ve still got the remnants of the headache this morning—perhaps it is allergies with all the extra pollen out here. We’re planning to go to St. Charles today, and get together with some family friends tonight.

 
Tomorrow we head off on vacation to St. Louis. So tonight has been a flurry of packing. We’re just about all done—I’ve just got the computer to finish up, and a little bit of cleaning to complete. I’ll do my best to be your host for a St. Louis travelogue as we play tourist in the Gateway City 🙂

(and yes, I do plan to roadgeek Missouri highways!)