St. Louis

Veteran's day was a beautiful day here in St. Louis. Odie was off, because we are in a union state and the contractor's were off. We decided to play tourist and went into St. Louis to ride the arch. It is amazing when you are looking at it, that there is room for very small tram cars inside to take you to the top, and you can look out over the city. We went under ground where there is a museum, gift shop, and old 1800's store with 2009 prices. Odie went to purchase the tickets to ride to the top. The young girl asked if we had a problem with closed in spaces, stairs, or heights. Odie said no, and I kind of muttered hmmm. We proceeded further under ground and went through a museum hall with the history of how the arch came to be. That was very interesting. We stood in line and climbed into a very small car. It reminded me of a carnival car, but it was very old, painted the old hospital aqua, and had five plastic seats that reminded me of tractor seats. Believe me, five large or probably even regular sized people would not have fit. Fortunately, we were the only two in our car. It had very small elongated windows, so you could look down as you were going up. The ride up seemed to take forever, but I am sure it only last a few minutes.

When the doors opened, you were in a very narrow stairway crammed with people waiting to go back down. You continued up about 20 or so stairs to the top of the arch. Odie took pictures out the windows from different views, as I sort of stood in the middle and kind of crouched down to look out a little, stamping down the panic attack trying to come to the fore front of my imagination. The good thing is that it was not a windy day. People around me were talking about the way you can feel it sway on a windy day.

Going down was much more pleasant than coming up. (NOT) We had another couple that rode down with us. We were knees to knees. The young man smelled of a gagging mixture or cigarette smoke and cheap musk cologne. The arch is much nicer to look at from the ground.

I can now mark off riding the arch from my bucket list. It is an adventure I will not be repeating.

Odie had been to a pizza place with one of his bosses, and we went in search of it. The name of the place was the Pi symbol. It was in a district that reminded me of the Montrose or museum district in Houston. The pizza was actually called a Chicago style pizza. It was thin crusted with sides that came up like a pie. The first layer was the cheese, then the ingredients, and then topped with the sauce. We added a salad, homemade bread with roasted garlic and butter. This wonderful meal was topped off with a very mellow dark ale.

My day ended with a wonderful phone call. When I answered my phone, this beautiful little voice said, "Hi, Grammy." It was my Carissabella. She had some new movies, had been to Wal Mart, and was going to Disney on Ice. I am enjoing Missouri and the beautiful weather, but I can't wait until Thanksgiving to see my little ones!

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