Suggested Listening for this Entry: Let me attack this three ways. First, for historical context, listen to “The Cheater” by Bob Kuban and the In Men. Second, for a feel of the music heard at this show, find your city’s biggest name wedding/bar mitzvah band and sit through their versions of “We Are Family” and “Celebration". Third, I can’t leave you readers with a bad musical taste in your mouths, so give a listen to the CD Rockin’ Eighty-Eights by St. Louis piano players Johnnie Johnson, Clayton Love and Jimmy Vaughn. Sugg [View Full Entry]

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Suggested Listening for this Entry: Anything by St. Louis native son Chuck Berry Suggested Foor and Drink for this Entry: A grilled sausage of your choosing (Italian, Brat, Polish) on a bun and a Budweiser (because you won't find any Miller products at Busch Stadium). After the previous evening's scares of non-starting jet engines and the Hampton Inn-Union Station in St. Louis not having the room I reserved (not mentioned earlier), I was ready for a new day. A day with baseball and beer. After picking up my rental tank, I mean SUV, and dropping it off at the hotel, I [View Full Entry]

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Suggested Listening for this Entry: "Star, Star" and "It's Only Rock and Roll" by the Rolling Stones. "East Bound and Down" (aka the theme from Smokey and the Bandit) by Jerry Reed...read on to find out why that one is included. Suggested Food and Drink for this Entry: Beer, beer and more beer in tall boy cans. A couple of blocks away from Busch Stadium, there is an area with a few bars with patios / outside party areas, perfect for enjoying some pre or post game libations. As I wandered that way, I noticed one of the bars had the [View Full Entry]

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Thrifty Travel Tip #2: Talk to the locals - you might find a nice place to stay or at least, the best place in town to grab a good meal. Thrifty Travel Tip #3: Shop at the grocery stores and eat in the car. Hello again, this time from St. Louis, MO!!! We left oxford pretty early but didn't make it very far but for good reason. We had a good start when we woke up early at Tom's around 9 AM. Dustin and I know that eating on the road can get expensive, so we decided to stop at Kroger [View Full Entry]

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Today we toured around Saint Louis. We went to the top of the Arch after viewing a video about how they built this 640 ft. tall structure. The construction workers would walk around the top with out any ropes, crazy. We walked down to the Missippippi and had lunch at the Landing. In the afternoon we made it over to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and watched how they make Bud. 0 miles traveled. [View Full Entry]

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Our trip across Missouri started out with a stop at the Harry S. Truman Museum in Independence. This was a good history lesson about the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War. From there we stopped for Lunch in Columbia. Seemed to be a cool college town with a nice village. After that It was off to St. Louis, Gateway to the West. We arrived at our hotel and hurried to get ready for the Cardinal game. We noticed there was lots of security. It turns out it was for Ben Bernake, who was also a guest at [View Full Entry]

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We've come to our final destination. The USofA for Carly & Paul's wedding. Chi Town Arriving in Chicago, it was nice to be met by someone at the airport, and someone who could talk to us and we could understand (my dad). So good to see the family again, and also some of Phuong's family too. My little nephew (who's almost one) has learnt to do kisses : D - well he leans in, and you get a bit of slobber, but it's the most adorable thing in the world. Chicago feels like my 2nd (or 3rd maybe) home but it [View Full Entry]

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In the morning, we drove to Missouri, and it was very foggy outside! When we got to Branson, we decided to keep driving until we got to St. Louis, which was 212 miles away at that point. St Louis took about 4 hours to get to but it was worth it! We walked around the downtown area and saw lots of buildings and the baseball park. We went to the Gateway Arch and took the ride up to the top. That’s 630 feet up! You could look out the windows and see St Louis and the Mississippi river. Trevor and I [View Full Entry]

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Tim and I love to play tour guide in our "new" city. So, Ken and Fey are perfect victims.... HA. Ken has spent enough time roaming the midwest. Frankly, in my opinion there is only so much any one person can tolerant from the midwest..... Hey, I'm a midwestern by birth, so I can make such a statement..... and you know it's true. But, we make the best of it. We show the kids the Gateway Arch, a must do when in St. Lou. We have lunch at Morgan Street Brewery in Laclede's Landing (one of STL older parts/neighborhoods on the [View Full Entry]

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Well... Here I am in Tower Grove South, St. Louis, running my own business and bartending here: http://www.citymuseum.org. I've had a fairly eventful year of traveling, within the United States. I lost someone very dear to me last summer. He died tragically in a motorcycle accident at age 27 in the mountains of Italy. I just haven't been the same since this happened. It reminded me that life is short and that our time here is precious. At the risk of sounding totally cliche, I made myself a promise that I would do all the things I'd always wanted to do, [View Full Entry]

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