Meet Me In St. Louis

The night before we arrived in St. Louis, we watched the great Judy Garland film, "Meet Me in St. Louis" to get us in the mood. Our main plan, here, was to visit our long time friends, Barbara and Joe. Many of you have heard the story of how we befriended them when Joe was our Rabbi in Rochester, MN when we first got married. Then they moved to Denver and the next year we were transfered to Boulder. Then we got transferred to Danbury and (this one was pretty amazing) then Joe became Rabbi of the small Conservative Synaogogue in Danbury. Unfortunately (for us) Barbara and Joe moved to Charlotte, a few years later, but we stayed on in Danbury. At any rate, we've been friends for more than 31 years so it's been really great to catch up with them.

Barbara and Joe hosted us for DELICIOUS gourmet dinners - first tuna steaks and then chicken breasts with a delicate sweet and spicey sauce. A highlight was meeting Barbara's and Joe's son-in-law and grandchildren especially since we met their mother she was just two years old.

During the days, we have played tourist a bit - visiting the arch, the zoo, the art museum. A highlight at the zoo was the penguins and also a mini-show by the St. Louis Muni Theater's kid's group. As always we made sure to have some regional food such Porter's Fried Chicken where Ellyn had favorite treats, fried okra and fried gizzards. Yesterday, we had hickory smoked BBQ and the heavenly treat, "Concrete" frozen custard at Ted Drewe's.

Today, we're taking the day off to hang around the RV but I'm hoping we do go out for more frozen custard! :-) We'll end Shabbat with our friend, Rabbi Josef Davidson, as he teaches during the Shabbat Third Meal proceeding Havdalah at B'nai Amoona.

Tomorrow, we start heading west with a goal to get into Kansas by the end of the day.