Well......I Was Out of Town

Hmmmm, last summer I was able to blog from my iPhone but I couldn't do it now when I needed to blog from the road.  I will have to add more Blue Moon Blogging days into early Sept.

Early in June I made plans to visit a new client in St. Louis in August.  I was so excited to go there--we visited as a whole family a few summers ago and it has remained a destination to re-visit.  i HIGHLY recommend it for many wonderful (and free) things to do as a family.

I picked a Friday that had a St. Cardinals baseball game.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I actually thought I could take the whole family and we would have another great time but get to see a baseball game, tour Anheuser-Busch, take the kids to the wacky but great City Museum and more.  Then in July I realized the kids would be back to school.

So I went by myself but I was smarter for this trip and made sure I had some time to not just hop on a plane back back take some time.  And it was gorgeous.  The residents and workers of the city of St. Louis pay a 1% city tax so that visitors can do so many free activities in beautiful Forest Park--site of the 1904 World's Fair....such as museums and the zoo.  Here is just one small part of Forest Park:

After my meeting I drove to Forest park and parked right near that lawn and toured the Art Museum (one of the few structures left from 1904's Fair) and got to gaze at paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Gaugin and many more.  Here is the front:

Then it was just a couple of blocks to the St. Louis zoo.  I hadn't been to a zoo in forever and although I am not a fan of places like Sea World or even the Georgia Aquarium, I did enjoy this zoo very much.  And it's free!  There is a flight cage that was built in 1904 for the World's Fair that remains:

Here is a gorilla who sat down quickly in the "Thinker" pose.

It was gorgeous weather and I got to see everything, and I was really surprised to see swimming hippos.  For a minute I thought they were fake--there were three or four of them swimming/walking completely underwater and so gracefully:

Here is the rear view--their "ankles" and toes looked just like a cartoon.

I also drove to St. Charles, MO, where Lewis and Clark began their Journey in 1804 at a certain spot on the Missouri River.  I lucked out with 78 degree weather.  I will definitely be back and maybe another time will do that beer tour and see a game and more.

Flight Back--
--Of course no trip report would be complete without a mention of my TSA experience.  As I've mentioned before, i never have any TSA encounters here at the world's busiest airport because Atlanta has about 16 security lines and only 4 body scanner machines so I pick a line way to the left and about 4 rows from a body scanner.  But for my return, once again St. Louis is like other airports where my gate only had two security lines and one had the body scanner so I stood in the other line and got my stuff on the conveyor belt and just as it was my turn the TSA guy put a rope in front of the "regular" metal detector and started to send people to the Body Scanner.  So once again in my travels I had to say that I did not want to go thru the body scanner.  Fortunately I didn't have to wait too long for a "Female Opt Out" assistance and when the female TSA agent asked if I knew the routine I told her I travel and don't want to get radiation every month and she actually said, "I can't blame you--if I traveled a lot I wouldn't do it either."  She was not physically offensive to me as the one time in Tulsa, OK.

So back safe and sound....till Houston in one week.