St. Louis, Missouri

The Arch

Union Station, now lacking trains but has a hotel and shops

One of the stained glass windows

Another stained glass window

Andrew pretending to run to catch a train :)

This is one of the train models

Can't visit the train station without feeding the fish!

Catherine and Andrew

This building's been painted to look like this, windows, ledges, statue. So real looking that birds have to be swept up after crashing into the wall. Ouchie.

This is the Cruel Fate gang, starting with Andrew in front then going around the table, Anna and her husband Mike. End of the table is Josh, his daughter, Jocelyn and his wife Liz. Then me and Catherine.

Thursday I hooked up with three more friends, Sara, Mathew and their dad, Paul. Also gaming friends.

All in all a fun time in St. Louis!

Lynita

Movin' On

The picture uploader is being wonky and failing to upload so this entry will be pictureless.

We left Eureka Springs, Arkansas Tuesday April 27th and headed to a 'burb of St.Louis, Hazelwood. It took us about 4 hours but we did stop in Branson, Mo. Had breakfast and Rosa visited a couple of winerys. We cruised the strip, took some pictures and hit a couple of tourist shops for souviners. We got to Hazelwood about 6 pm and checked into the LaQuinta for 3 nights. My friend Catherine picked me up Wednesday about noon, just in time for lunch. Rosa decided to stay at the hotel and have a lazy day all to herself. I had real St. Louis pizza. Thin crust and provolene (sp) cheese instead of mozzorila (sp), unusual tasting but good. I also tried toasted ravioli. They're very like a totino's pizza roll but no cheese.

We stopped afterwards to pick up her son Andrew from school and they gave me a tour of St. Louis. Wandered around Union Square, and old train station that has shops and a hotel in it now. We fed the koi in the fish pond, bought some fudge and headed for the arch. Massive and no way would you get me up in that thing. Saw a building that had a painted facade of statuary, window ledges and such that fools the birds so often they have to sweep up dead birds that have tried to land on the ledges.

From there we drove to the Loop, an artists area where we were to meet up with more friends for dinner. Stopped in at Fritz's for root beers. They make they're own and bottle it there too. Checked out the stars embedded in the sidewalk of famous people who were born in St. Louis, most of whom were baseball players.

Everyone met up at the Blueberry Hill restaurant. Josh and Liz with their youngest Jocelyn (hope I spelled that right), Anna and Mike and of course Catherine, Andrew and me. Dinner was fun, I turned my camara over to Andrew and we did get a waitress to take a group picture of us all.

I will post pictures at a later date. Promise!

Thursday was a lazy day but I did hook up with another friend, Paul and his two kids, Mathew and Sara. They brought me a World of Warcraft calender, a handmade card (thanks Sara!) and a postcard from one of their trips. We opted for dessert up at the Denny's next to the hotel.

All the people above I have met online while playing World of Warcraft. Catherine and Andrew had come out to my area last summer so I was meeting the rest for the first time, in real life. We have played for years and talk over Ventrilo, a voice chat program so it was nice to put faces to voice.

Lynita

War Eagle Caverns, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Part of the path down to the cavern

There are fossily tubuler things in this rock

Coming up on the entrance

If I remember right these are pictographs of a bison (right) and a deer (left)

Alligator

This is the wild way into the cave

This little guy was awake when Rosa snapped his pic

There's a prop skeleton back there

Our intrepid guide

Our gift shop hotess :)

Those are a few of the pictures we took at the caverns, it was a verrrrrrra interesting ....uh...hike

Lynita

Turpentine Creek pics

A caracal---my fave

Thats some cat scratchin' post

Using a scratch post is hard work!

Hrmph

Yeah, I'll give ya a smile

Fresh water

Bath time

Orange tigress~~White tiger

Those are a few of the pictures we took at the sanctuary.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

After 2 days in Harrison we drove up to Eureka Springs and stayed two nights.
We'd checked the phone book and found a Motel 6 and called to reserve our stay. Had a lovely country drive, entered Eureka Springs and drove right on out of it...um...no motel 6. Rosa calls, we get directions. So back through town we go. Still no motel 6. Rosa calls -again- and the guy stays on the phone giving us directions. Well, Motel 6 turns out to be Motel 62. It had changed hands after all the phone books were printed. I saw it when we entered town the first time...but I was looking for a motel 6.....

Saturday was spent doing touristy things. We went and saw Quigley's Castle. Here are a few pictures:

This house was painstakingly coated in rocks and yes those are real plants growing from the ground in the house to the second floor. They are 50 years old.

A view of an upstairs bedroom

`

These are both from the living room

A quilt and an embroidered bedspread, there is bead work in the peacocks tail and the flowers

Notice the bottom book, its Harry Potter :)

A fence and gate made of rock and cement

I put a link at the right so you can check out the place.

And thats it for tonight, I'll tell you about the other places we went.

Lynita

An assortment of pictures

The monkeys needed their own bed.

Then Stormy evicted them and hogged it for himself!

Trish, Peggy and Rosa at the Harrison, Arkansas show

This is Pocket, she went BoWs and BoS and it was her first show. Way to go Pocket

Rosa took this shot across the motel yard after one of the -many-rainstorms that day. We have had more rain on this trip than we've had in Washington in a few weeks.

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We were driving in Harrison and saw this on the corner... we did not stop for a closer look. You may not be able to tell from the picture but that is a couple of guys selling AKC pups out of a truck... Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

These are a few of the bags Rosa made for the JCCA auction and one for the japanese chin rescue and some are for sale.

This is a quilt shop we stopped at on our way to Eureka Springs, Arkansas.