A Day of "Almosts"

We arrived in St. Louis to do some sightseeing. The first "almost" was finding the special parking lot for RV's. We followed the directions and ended up at a road blocked by a large concrete barrier- so high we couldn't see over it. So we drove around and around St. Louis looking for a place to park. There was a Cardinals game so the town was wearing red, not Phillies red, Cards red..and not many parking options. Skip asked a parking attendant who would let us park there for $60 bucks, but gave directions to a free lot farther away from the stadium, close enough for the Arch. We found a place to park and walked toward the Riverwalk...to find that it was quite flooded. The mighty Mississippi had overtaken about a block of the tourist area along its banks. Letting the humans know who is boss. We walked to the water so Skip could touch it and I could take a photo. None of the water activities were running, no riverboat tour today. (Almost #2) We understood why the parking lot was blocked, the street, which ran along the river was flooded.



After a brief view of the Arch and a few photos, we looked for a restaurant and found an Irish Pub. I had the best pulled lamb sandwich! (OK, it was my ONLY pulled lamb sandwich, hadn't eaten lamb since I was an honorary Armenian in high school.) Washed it down with a Harp, also good. Skip had salmon and iced tea since he was driving.



Back on the road we hadn't gotten far out of St. Louis when a tire from a semi jumped the median and careened toward us! Neither we nor the car in the next lane hit it! (Almost #3, or miracle #1, depending on your point of view.) A little nerve rattling, but a prayer of thanks was offered.

Not getting much further down the road, I fell asleep and was awakened by Skip saying, "I just got pulled over by a cop and I have no idea why.." Uh oh...

He got out of the RV and spent a long time talking to the officer. Then a second officer came up and I was asked to come out. They asked a lot of questions about where we were going and about our plans. What I didn't know at the time was that they had already asked Skip if we had any guns, drugs, or large sums of money. Skip's answer of we don't own guns, have prescriptions for any drug with us and had about $500 between us, drew an amused, "we are looking for thousands, not hundreds." Then one asked if he could go inside to check. Forget about the 4th Amendment and search warrants! We were so rattled that neither of us thought a second before we gave permission. Nothing was found, of course, and we were sent on our way with a handshake and very frazzled nerves. (almost #4) No ticket, no traffic violation, no warning, just: "have a nice trip you seem like nice people..." They were not bullying nor rude, just doing their job. Don't know who they were looking for, but glad it wasn't us. Next time I teach about the 4th amendment, I have a story to tell.

Almost #5 came when we tried to get on the internet to make reservations for a campsite, and couldn't log in at McDonalds #1 and Almost # 6 was the second attempt at McDonalds #2.

We were also planning to find Jack Stack for barbeque, Kansas City style. That takes care of Almost #7 and #8. We stopped at another McDonalds in KC but a woman in a van identifying herself as with the police department told us we were in an unsafe neighborhood and we needed to leave! She gave us the address of Jack Stack in downtown KC, but we drove around and around and never found it. Ended up in Kansas...

So today is sunny and bright, the corn in Kansas is higher. We made reservations on the KOA free WiFi for tonight in Iowa. Maybe we'll buy some corn for dinner.