We took a mini-vacation trip to St. Louis. It wasn't exactly a Spring Break getaway- our destination gets the same weather Cincinnati does- just 24 hours earlier. And it snowed that weekend. I think we relied less on the news forecast and more on our hopes built from memories of past anniversary trips when deciding what clothes to pack, because we certainly weren't prepared for three inches of snow.
I blame the snow for the shift in our agenda. Up until the flakes began to fall, we were pretty much on schedule with the things we planned to do. After the snow covered our car and cracked the windshield, every activity seemed to have a less than desirable twist attached to it.
It was still a fun visit- I won't discredit that. We had fun, got to see a few cool things, got lots of free food (and lots of pricey food) and we enjoyed ourselves together as a family. The drive home, however, was not as pleasant. I was the only one who didn't get sick at some point during the last 24 hours, but I was suffering through some serious back pain (I still am 2 weeks later). What was supposed to an 11pm arrival at home turned into 7:30am the next morning, after an overnight layover in the emergency room in Carroll County, KY. Owen had another Febrile seizure in the car. If we had already been home, we would have been able to take care of it more easily, but since we were driving we didn't have as much control over the situation. We had no way to try to bring his fever down quickly. We backtracked 9 miles to the nearest hospital, and we put our son in the hands of the most thorough doctor in the Bluegrass State. He ordered tests for Owen all night long- "just to be sure of everything." Naturally, all Owen wanted to do was sleep. But we had to keep waking him up for blood draws and IVs and urine samples. At 1am, Nora was still wide awake. I took her for a drive to put her to sleep and Leslie tried to sleep in a chair in the ER with Owen. For roughly 3 and a half hours, Nora and I slept outside in the 34 degree parking lot. We woke to Les and Owen knocking on the window a little before 6am.I would love it if the entire trip were on schedule, and I'd love it without all the vomiting. I would have also enjoyed more sunshine, more working trains and buses (we walked about 19 blocks because of a section of train track that was under repair- and buses were only going every 40 minutes). I could've done without the cracked windshield, the 3 hour wait to go up the Arch, or losing Owen for 3 minutes in a 600,000 square foot building. But you know, memories are made from experiences. Good or bad, we treasure what we remember.
It was another great year with a wonderful wife, and two awesome kids. I'll never forget that.
Some extra pictures:
The "Big Ben" from Pappy's Smokehouse. Ribs, Quarter Chicken, and two Sandwiches.
When we left Pappy's, the line to order was 30 minutes long. The line to wait to get in to the order line was about an hour. This place is a big deal, apparently. It was good, but I wasn't blown away.
This is the best shot I could get from my cell phone (I regret not taking my Canon to this place). This is a ten story spiral slide inside City Museum. Awesome place.
This is the sponge pit at City Museum. It's a very hard place to describe; the closest I would say would be a free-spirited giant playplace made by modern artists. There are 600,000 square feet of tunnels, slides, holes, and caves. Unlike at McDonald's, where you know where the playplace tunnel exit is, this place has a thousand options for every entrance.
Owen standing under the arch.
My attempt at a panoramic shot from the top of the arch.
