Meet Me In St. Louis - Pt. 2

This morning I woke up and watched all the stories about the death of Michael Jackson. I just could not believe that he died! Yesterday (Thursday), Arik had texted me that he died. I think because I was on the train, it just seemed like I was on my way to another world and it didn't register. Al I was watching, I texted my dad a memory (and as you know, memories of my childhood are fleeting, so kudos to me) of us driving around town trying to find tickets to the Michael Jackson concert. Tickets - no, T-shirt - yes. Good times.

I digress... Once we were up and dressed, we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant which took FOREVER! Then, we went to get the rental car. We had to walk a couple blocks to get to the Enterprise. Noel swears up and down that the valet parking attendent had a crush on me. I just think he was doing his job...

We got the car and were off to the Anheuser- Busch Brewery.

We were relying on a couple maps, the navigation on my phone, Lolita, and the GPS from Sadie MV, Lola... Let me tell you, my GPS wasn't worth a darn in St. Louis. Lolita and Lola had really hard times getting and KEEPING a signal in town. Needless to say, every single time we jumped in the car, we had to add 15-20 minutes to our drive time beacause we always got lost! BTW, we named the car Belinda because she was cheap and stank like cigarette smoke. Sorry to all the Belindas of the world; not all of you are skanky...

The brewery tour was great. It reminded me of the Hershey tour we took some years back, only you got free beer at the end of the tour instead of chocolate. The facility was beautiful. My image of a run down factory was tossed aside once we got there. We saw the Clydesdales and can I just say their stable was nice. They live better than I do! We learned how they made the beer and the history of the factory and all the things the company does for society.

At the end, we were allowed 2 free samples of beer; and not your regular hum-drum, itsy-bitsy sample.. Noel and I aren't beer drinkers, but she wanted to try some. We did, but I took it a step farther and we had to chug the beers. The picture speaks for itself...

Here are a couple more pix from the brewery...

After the beer tour, we rode down historic Route 66 to the Ted Drewes Frozen Custard Stand. I had a delicious Apple Pie Sundae. It was sooooooooooo yummy! I think I could make it at home...
Then we were off to the St. Louis Science Center. Everything was hands on. There were kids learning all over the place. There was this contraption in the center of one of the buildings that was powered by children on a wheel. Very cool indeed...

We walked around in the park for a while, saw the Jewel Box (a plant house of some sort), a pretty waterfall feature, and then tried to find the playground of turtles to no avail... Ah, well. It was all pretty wonderful. We headed over the the DelMar Loop and got lost on the way. Why did the city of STL call a street named DelMar Blvd. the Loop when there is a section of the city called the DelMar Loop????? Ridiculous!

Anyway, we at at Fitz's and watched them bottle rootbeer. Then we walked The Loop and saw all the famous "stars" on the sidewalk. We figured out the randomness to the "stars." It just had to do with anyone that had done anything famous and could somehow be tied to STL. Some were born in STL, others just passed through. I didn't get any pictures because my mind was slowing frying from being under the hot, hot sun for so long. It just felt like Hades....

We ended up having the whole evening free, so we went in search of a Wal-Mart or Target. The need for apple juice was undeniable! Damn that apple juice on the train! We ended up getting very lost for a long time. Talk about sight-seeing! We ended up seeing a lot more, thanks to our cracked out GPS...