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.

Gettin’ Our Kicks

After staying overnight near Springfield, IL, we had a short trip to St. Louis, MO and all day to get there. So we decided this was a great opportunity to get off the Interstate Highway grid and see some of rural America. Coincidentally, we were right next to old Route 66 which runs from Chicago to the west coast. We looked up some info on it and directions on how to get to it and found out that it was right across I-55 from the campgrounds. So we were off.

Ellyn got online and started reading about what we might see. In the next town we found an old gas station which had been refurbished but was not selling gas. We looked around for a restaurant she found listed but discovered it was really in the previous town. So we continued on.

Next we came to Henry’s Rabbit Ranch. Henry came out to greet us and we found out that, what appeared to be an old gas station was really built by Henry and decorated to look like an old gas station. He had pens of rabbits which he treated like his children and had little stories about each one of them and where they had been rescued from. He seemed like a very nice guy and we bought some souvenirs, petted the bunnies, and headed on down the road.

Henry had told us about a place to stop for lunch, so we hit Weezy’s Route 66 Grill. We parked across the street in front of a farmer’s stand, where we bought some fruit and vegetables after lunch. We had a nice conversation with the owner and his S.O. about our travels and he said it was his dream as well, and that they were going to take a trip at the end of the season.

As we approached the Mississippi River, we pulled off to go to the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which used to be the road over the river on Route 66 until the 1970’s, when the bridge on I-270 was completed nearby. Now it is a pedestrian and biking bridge so we parked the RV and got the bikes out for a nice 2 mile ride (1 over, 1 back). We also saw a beach down on the river near the “chain of rocks” across the river and so we drove down there to see the river up close. Ellyn got stuck in the silt and we talked with a guy who had been fishing, and had some down-home stories for us. Once again, the RV was a conversation starter.

From there, we got back onto the interstate and headed to Babler Memorial State Park and our 4 day camping spot.