Meet Me in St. Louie

Marc had a weekend conference thingy in St. Louis so I tagged along for fun. One of the first places we stopped was this delightfully tacky Indian restaurant. It was delicious, but it was lucky that we didn't notice this sign until we were leaving or our expectations might have been too high.

 Yes, that does say the restaurant serves the largest verity of Indian delicacies. That's right, at Mr. Curry there is no variety only truth. In other words, the dishes served at this restaurant are true dishes and all other Indian restaurants are frauds in comparison. Not only are they true, but they are "traditional, authentic and futuristic". Oh yeah, the chef is clairvoyant. He knows what the Indians of the future are eating and he's serving it up hot and ready on the buffet line. We can confirm the traditional and authentic claims, I don't know about futuristic although they did have a dessert we hadn't seen before. Truly, it was a treat to have ethnic food that isn't available in Dickinson. Thank you Mr. Curry.

We loved walking around the City Garden in downtown St. Louis. It was hot and humid and the fountains were filled with little children splashing and playing. They even had lifeguards on duty. It was so cute! We weren't wearing our swimsuits so we stuck to the shade and the statuary. These are some of my favorite garden pics. I ended up spending a lot of time there while Marc was in meetings.

It's a little creepy. Reminds me of a spinal tap song.

That doesn't look super comfortable to carry on your back Mr. Horse. Al the same, there's something I love about it.

This was my favorite statue in the whole garden. I call it, "Cute Husband in Shades".

Aww. Reminds me of our bunnies Boo and Radley.

Pinnochio looks so happy. I wonder if this is the moment he realizes he's becoming a real boy.

This was particularly intriguing. I think it's lady justice. The giant head is hollow and water runs down away from it almost like blood. You can crawl inside the head and view St. Louis through its eyes. Thought provoking.

Speaking of justice, here are the current courts with their impressive columns.

This yoga-doing sumo man was Marc's favorite. There is something charming about him.

Of course, he likes this one too- Wife with Waterfall.

The hotel left a little to be desired in the way of amenities but we didn't know just how bad things were until we saw this sign.

Sorry, I had to. This kind of thing slays my little boys.
Anyway, we chose to stay out of the "poo" and instead went to the gardens in central St. Louis in the evening. Unfortunately, the greenhouse of tropical flowers we wanted to see was being usurped by a wedding. We decided to be good and didn't crash it. It was a gorgeous place to get married, but I have to wonder if the bride was sweltering in her many-layered dress. Instead, we discovered a touching memorial for those who fought in the Korean war.

The story of the Chosin Few is the Iwo Jima of the Korean War. These men fought against impossible odds, outnumbered 8 to 1, in one of the coldest Korean winters on record they battled their way to freedom through 10 Chinese infantry divisions. Marines are amazing.

We then stumbled on an outdoor theater that was playing Beauty and the Beast and I had never seen the live musical so we took advantage of being child-free and stayed up way too late watching it under the stars. Sometimes it's just so nice to be alone. On our way into the amphitheater, we passed two policeman who were there for crowd control. One of them was a little rotund, and was wearing a very old fashioned uniform and was smoking, I kid you not, a stogie. It was like a cartoon come to life. I wanted to check his pockets for donuts.

Ignore the sunburn, the sweaty hair and the red eyes. It was so fun and totally worth it. I am one happy girl with by playbill and souvenir cup.

I spent some time in the Old Courthouse reading the history of the Dred Scott case and feeling in turns proud and ashamed of my American heritage. It's a beautiful old building.

Isn't this a cool view of the courthouse with the arch behind it? It's like they did that on purpose or something.

I loved the refurbished inside of the courthouse. So beautiful.

Of course, we couldn't visit St. Louis without visiting the arch. It was kind of a scary experience. If you've never been to the arch, you have to ride up to the top in a little space-age looking pod. These things are tiny. I learned I have a bit of clausterphobia and some other poor souls were sobbing when they got off the pods at the top. I felt so bad that they would have to ride back down too. I would have rather taken the stairs. That being said the view from the top is lovely and the arch itself is awe-inspiring.

A view from the top- including the stadium where Marc watched many a Cardinals game as a child. He's still a huge Cards fan.

I love this man. He held my hand in the scary pod things and made sure I got my turn at the windows even when it was crowded.

It was far too short of a trip, I'd love to go back with our boys sometime. Of course we'll have to wait until they aren't arch enemies anymore. See what I did there?