So yeah...I KNOW that today is Thursday and yeah, I KNOW that I'm supposed to have my Illustration Friday offering for your collective visual pleasure today but I don't. You see, my being "sick" has precluded me from working on anything fun and creative outside of "not dying" for the past few days. I am, though, feeling JUST good enough today to (possibly) thrill you all with tales from our recent trip to St. Louis, MO...Y'all gotcher river waders on? Good...Let's go...

My Big Holiday Idea...
So, I think that I mentioned (back around Christmastime) what I had purchased my wife as her Christmas present. Just as a refresher, she's a big fan of the St. Louis Blues (it's ok, she was "born" there or something) and her favorite Blues player is Al Macinnis (now retired). While tooling around online in December, looking for a decent Christmas present for her, I stumbled across the fact that, on April 9th, 2006, the Blues were going to play the Edmonton Oilers and, during the game, retire Al Macinnis' number. In fact, the whole evening was scheduled to be "Al Macinnis night" there at the Savvis center in St. Louis. When I read this information, of course, my tiny little brain whirred and clanked, remembering that my wife had said that she desperately wanted to see a Blues game at the Savvis center at some point in her life...I figured that I could get tickets for the event...Sure it'd make a great present but, I'd also have to get a hotel and THEN we'd have to find some way to get to St. Louis...Long story short, I was able to get 4th row seats for the game, a $120-a-night king suite hotel room directly across the street from the Savvis center for a mere $44 per night and, yeah...We ended up driving the 12 hours to St. Louis 'cause airfare was stinkin' OUTRAGEOUS...

Meanwhile, Back in Present Day...
At some point, while I tried (in vain) to sleep from Thursday night to Friday morning, I "fell ill." Now, I had high hopes that I was merely experiencing "bad allergies" or even a spot of "sinus trouble," as I am apt to do at this time of year but, as the day wore on, it became painfully obvious that I was, in fact, "fixin' to get sick." Since it was too late to get a doctor's appointment, I took some over-the-counter crap to dull my symptoms and suffered through my day at work. Unfortunately, not only did I have to officiate a wrestling match on Friday afternoon, my wife and I had our first softball game of the season at 9pm. Needless to say, after the wrestling matches were over, I felt "mostly dead" and had really no ambition to play softball. Being the sensible individual that I am, though, I DID play softball...While I was playing, however, I felt eminently "ok," a condition helped along by the fact that my team won. Following the softball game, though, I rapidly declined into "sickness Hell" once again and, when we got home, I was pretty well out of it. I tried to pack a few things but instead ended up passing out in a delirious stupor falling gently to sleep, waking some hours later convulsing in a 2-inch-deep puddle of sweat refreshed and ready to go to St. Louis (The truth is that we got up at about 3am to hit the road at which time I was still mostly incoherent which led to me forgetting some pretty important things like ALL of the mapquest directions I had printed out)...Anyhow, the plan had been for my wife to take the first half of the driving since she tends to be much happier when she's alone on the road. I was scheduled to take over in Salina, Kansas and pilot us the rest of the way into St. Louis with a quick stop in Olathe to visit with some friends and have lunch...

The Best Laid Plans...
For me, the "plan" seemed to be working perfectly seeing as I pretty much passed right out again once I was in the passenger seat of our Vue, not to regain consciousness until we pulled into Waukeeney, Kansas (our first gas stop). It was here that I realized that, among other vital items, I had forgotten my damn sunglasses, an accessory which becomes pretty important when you're traveling directly into the sun in Kansas. Due to this oversight, and as much as I hate to patronize gas stations for anything more than "gas," I was forced to purchase a stylishly overpriced new pair of shades at the "Town Pump" store. Strangely enough, once we hit the road from Waukeeney, I remarked that I was feeling "much better" than the night before, certainly doing my level best to convince myself that I wasn't really sick...At the very least, I was definitely trying to convince my wife that I was OK so she wouldn't turn the car around and take me home, effectively wasting her super-cool Christmas present...Dammit, even if I had to frickin' DIE, she was going to make it to Al Macinnis night...

Little Crappy Mexican Restaurants Have The Best Damn Food...
Despite the lack of scenery and the stupid Goddamn 70 mile-per-hour speed limit (fuck YOU, Kansas), it seemed like we made it to Salina, where I was to take over the driving, in a reasonable amount of time. At that point, we were only a couple of hours out from the Kansas City "metro area" which includes Olathe, where our friends Sean and Becky and their kids Mitchell and Isaac live. Ok, to be fair, they have birds and dogs too but...Look, I was sick, I don't even remember the dogs' names...Anyhow, to make an already long story only a tiny bit shorter, we got to see the kids (wow, how they've grown), the house (nice house, nice neighborhood) and, of course, the pets. After the meet n' greet, we headed off to one of Sean and Becky's favorite little crappy restaurants called Mi Ranchito, a smallish, family owned Mexican restaurant there in Olathe which currently occupies what used to be (and by "used to," I mean, like...25 years ago) a Pizza Hut. Sean had promised that Mi Ranchito was pretty damn good and, frankly, he was correct. The food was flavorful and the portions were considerable. On top of that, it was all very affordable (one of my FAVORITE features of any restaurant). My wife had a really awesome cream cheese and avocado chicken enchilada plate thing, I had slow-cooked Chile Verde Pork with rice, beans and tortillas, Becky had...Dammit, what DID becky have? I can't remember...Anyway, the kids had kids' meals and Sean, not one to be preoccupied with trivial things such as astronomical cholesterol numbers or clogged up arteries, ordered up some big fat deluxe burrito thing and then requested that it be deep-fried. Despite the fact that it could've probably killed me outright, his lunch looked quite awesome and, even though I didn't sample it, it caused me to gain 4 whole pounds just from inhaling it's fatty aroma...No, I'm serious...4...whole...stinkin'...pounds...This thing was so huge, It had it's own atmosphere and gravity and ecosystem and the other lunches orbited around it...

Anyhow, after enjoying some pretty good Mexican food and even better conversation, it was time to bid farewell to Sean, becky and the kids and hit the road towards or final destination for the day. The tales that arose from those travels, I'll share with you good people sometime next week when I hit you with the big PART TWO of the (big) St. Louis trip recap (2006). Until then, you all have a fine Thursday...

Labels: get outta town, hockey stuff, I eat food, lame stories, sports