Domestic Geek

testing

I'm having posting issues. Posts may be weird.

Current mood: sore
Sorry about the lack of a posts. I didn't mean to worry you, Dad! Man, I'm a hurting unit! Between swimming the the pool, the walking we did in St. Louis and the climbing of rocks by the lake, my legs are killing me. That's good though--means I'm using muscles I haven't used it ages (at least since before the accident in July).

Day 4: Wednesday we had to check out of the hotel, Marcus had some work to finish up, then we were off to see the St. Louis Arch. What an amazing structure! I didn't take the time to ride up to the top (maybe next time!), but we did take an hour-long sightseeing cruise on the Mississippi River. We learned about Mark Twain, barges, the Eads bridge, the retaining wall, flood levels, etc. Very interesting. It was pretty neat. Downtown St. Louis, however, is kind of scary. I needed to find the US Bank that you could see from the cruise because I didn't have enough cash on me to pay for parking and I'm too cheap to pay the ATM fees with other machines. We figured it couldn't be that far from the Old Courthouse that I wanted to go see. Yeah, right. It ended up being several blocks away through a really seedy looking part of town. Oy.

We stopped for dinner and gas in East St. Louis, IL. We ate at this cool place called Lion's Choice. They had awesome roast beef sandwiches and "real" horseradish sauce. YUM! The sandwich was so good that I got Marcus and myself seconds. After dinner, we were underway for Clarksville, TN. I think we got in around 10 pm. Since it was so late, I was tired and went to bed not too long after arriving.

Day 5: The next morning, Marcus' mom made us bisquits and gravy for breakfast, which we ate out on their new (really nice) deck. Marcus taught his mom some stuff about the computer he brought her, then we were off to WalMart for fishing licenses and tacke (no need for trout stuff here). Marcus and I went with Marcus' dad to a place called Bumpis Mills to go fishing. We arrived about 3, so it was too late to rent a boat. We did some bank fishing. Marcus' dad caught the only keeper (a wide-mouth bass). We left when it got too dark to see, went to WalMart again to replace lost tackle and Marcus' mom ordered pizza for dinner. Then it was off to bed so we could get up at 5 am for more fishing. Unfortunatley, we realized we didn't have an alarm clock. I downloaded an alarm clock from Version Tracker for Marcus' ibook. He installed it and we hoped it would wake us up.

Day 6: The downloaded alarm clock worked great! Today we headed back out to Bumpis Mills after picking up some breakfast grub at Hardees. This time we got a boat and fishing was good right at first. Nothing keeper-size, however. I caught my first bass ever. Whoo hooo! Sadly, conditions worsened, it was too cloudy and the only thing biting were mosquitos. Booo. Oh, well. It was fun anyway. I really like being out on the water.

We got back from fishing early in the afternoon and Marcus' mom had spinach pancakes waiting for lunch. I took a shower and dozed off for awhile. We went to Applebee's for dinner and then back home. Dad had called while we were out. I called him beack and he had called because he was worried that something had happened since I hadn't posted here since Tuesday. After I chatted with Dad a bit, Marcus' mom showed me pictures of Marcus when he and his siblings were younger. It's amazing how much Marcus looks like his bio-dad. After pictures, there were some more computer lessons for Marcus' mom.

That brings us to now. I'm going to bed because I'm pooped. Tomorrow morning Marcus' dad is making french toast for breakfast and then I'm going to go find the scrapbook stores in this town. There is definitely one, possibly two. I guess we're going to be grilling, too.

OK, gotta wrap this up and go to bed.

Well, the afternoon was spent driving Marcus to various points where he had to work. I had the worst heartburn from the latte I got at this coffee shop by our hotel. Ugh!

We decided to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory by our hotel for dinner. I miss going to the one that used to be in Aurora and I always forget about the one in downtown Denver. What a dining diaster! We were seated after about 15 minutes waiting, given water and then basically ignored the rest of the evening. Our waitress was totally imcompetent, our drinks arrived about a half hour after being seated, we never got refills or more bread, the food arrived well after we were done with the salads, our food plates were taken away and still no waitress to bring the ice cream or the bill. I was in tears I was so angry. I try to be understanding when the service is not the best, but this was outrageous. I wish I was more like my sister in the fact that she doesn't stand for poor service. She would've probably got the dinner for free. Oh, well. I'll write to corporate about my crappy experience. Just stiffing the waitress didn't make me feel better.

I swam in the pool when we got back. That cheered me up. It's a little chilly here, but it felt good while I was in the pool. I asked Marcus to come down to the pool with me even though he doesn't swim. The last thing I need to do is down with nobody around. He got some reading done, at least.

Well, I better get to bed. Marcus has to work in the morning and then we're going to the Arch before we head out of St. Louis towards Clarksville. At least we'll be out of here before Friday's Presidential debate that's being held here!

We can't go anywhere in this country without finding the nearest Apple Store. So, guess where we are today. Yup, you guessed it - The Apple Store St. Louis. heh

I had a pretty decent day today. Of course, the worst day of vacation is still better than the best day at work. LOL

I decided to wander around St. Louis today. I was going to visit the Daniel Boone home, but it cost $12. Unfortunatley, I'm kind of poor. I'm saving the money to either ride over the arch or take a riverboat tour. I wanted to go to Grant's Farm where they keep the Budweiser Clydesdales, but they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I ended up just wandering around. I found a really neat art supply/scrapbooking store. I wish they had something like that in Denver. They had a LOT of stuff. I also found a cool scrapbook store called For Keeps Sakes. The lady there was really nice and suggested I go see the historic courthouse where Lincoln spoke often and some other things around town that are free. I'll probably do that tomorrow. Marcus and I are going to do the arch thing tomorrow, too.

We were just watching the news and see that several tornados hit the eastern part of the Denver metro area today. Nifty.

Marcus and I went to Hardees for lunch. We were hoping it was like the Hardees that used to be in Colorado (roast beef Arby's-like sandwiches). It was actually a Carl's Junior. *sigh* After thinking about it, I remembered the old Hardees in Colorado Springs on Garden of the Gods was now a Carl's. Oh, well. The decor in it was pretty cool. It looked like a diner. Pictures will be posted later.

We got dinner from a place called Steak 'n Shake and brought it back tot he hotel so we could watch CSI: Miami. It was pretty yummy. They have these half and half shakes. You pick two of your favorite shake flavors and they come in the same cup.

Since the St. Louis Cardinals are in the baseball playoffs, the town here is going nuts. They had some kind of rally today under the arch and I was listening to the radio broadcast of it when I was driving to pick Marcus up from work. It was weird hearing Wayne Hagen (former voice of the Colorado Rockies) talk about another team. The funny thing about listening to St. Louis radio is the traffic reports. They kept talking about heavy traffic and the sad thing was that their "bad" traffic is still way better than our "good" traffic. It was funny.

Speaking of funny, do you know that there are bible factory outlet stores? We saw that on a billboard coming in last night. That's too much.

I'm really tired, so I think I'll hit the hay.