Blogs from Saint Louis, Missouri, United States, North America

Where do I start? It's been a tough year... we lost our beloved Scaredy cat in March.... then Keith passed suddenly which threw us for a loop….and then the sweetest dog on Earth, my Simon, passed away just last month. September was the saddest month of my life thus far. I can still barely talk about losing Simon. I miss him almost every day. It's like a suffocating lump in your throat that doesn't go away. In other news, the St Louis Cardinals had a great year. I've always loved baseball and at some point in my life I switched from backing the KC Royals to the STL Cardinals. This year, with Simon being sick and blind, he couldn't do much.. he would whine if I didn't stay near him....so I would sit with him after ... read more

Sunday morning, May 20. We started the day in St. Louis and had a lot of sites to see before we depart. I checked our location with my new app and noticed that we started today at 38.6 N, 90.2 W, with an elevation of 460.1Ft. After breakfast and loading our car, we set out on foot to visit the Gateway Arch. Jackie and I have traveled a lot around the world and I can say without hesitation that this structure is one of the most fascinating that we have seen. I took a lot of photos, see below, but there is no way to capture this. You have to come see this yourself. We took the tram ride to the top. It worried me a bit given my claustrophobia, but made it without a problem. ... read more

After we left the ranch, we decided on a whim, to visit The Arch in St. Louis....also known as the gateway to the west 🤗 ... read more

Geo: 38.6276, -90.199Dot and I leave Monday morning - 5 am flight (ugh) to Chicago and from there to London. We arrive in London at 10:45 pm Monday night. Just in time to go to bed and recover from jet lag. We are staying at the Astor House in South Kensington, a small bed & breakfast. We have stayed there before and like the neighborhood. Friday we will head for France. Of course we will blog along the way and share our adventures.I invited Tom and Shannon to come visit us at O'Hare during our layover Monday morning, but they didn't seem to interested. I guess they have to work.... read more

Geo: 38.6276, -90.199Looking BackFriday, October 14, 2016DAY NINETEENPatrick and I arose at 4 am to be sure we were ready at 5 when the driver was to arrive to take us to the airport. Luckily for us, she was on time and we sailed to the airport. Our pals Barcy and Anne, however, were not so lucky. They ended up with the same driver as ours but she had several runs in between, got caught in traffic and was very late. It stressed them out because they were afraid of missing their flights. The whole driver thing – arranged through Visit Barcelona/Bilbao – was not a pleasant experience for us. Nor was the organization (or lack of organization) of the supplier of tour guides. We are spoiled from traveling with Tauck. And my high expectations of ... read more