okra: Road Trip!

Keith and I are in St. Louis for a vacation/anniversary celebration. Yay! I've been having a really good time! Yesterday we drove the two hours to St. Louis. After we arrived, we checked into our hotel, the Renaissance by the airport. We got a great deal because of our AAA membership. It's great, our room is super clean and the decor is pretty tasteful - rather than typical garish hotel. I'm sure it will become our new St. Louis hotel staple. It ended up costing about $15 more per night than Red Roof Inn - and there's really no comparison in quality.

After checking into the hotel, we went to my favorite Thai place on Delmar, where I had yellow curry and tofu. It was so, so good. We also ordered some scallion dumplings that were delicious.

Then, we went to the nearby comic shop for Keith. They had a lot of indie comics, stationery, figures, etc. It's a great little shop, called Star Clipper. Then we drove downtown to see the St. Louis arch. And oh criminy, it was so cold. We had to walk a bit to get to the Museum of Westward Expansion, which is underground, beneath the arch. It was snowing and miserably cold. But, we made it!

The museum was interesting, but I think that it could have been better designed. There were a lot of fascinating historical photographs, for example, but only a few of them had any kind of caption or explanation. This didn't bother Keith much, but it drove me crazy. There were also these super creepy animated historybots, made to look like historical figures. This is the William Clark-O-Bot:

I wouldn't want to be there alone at night, jeez. After escaping the freakomatrons, we were all tired out. So, we bought some taffy at the cheesy gift shop (1800's costumes were mandatory for the gift shop workers... it must be great if they have to stop by Best Buy or Target on their way home from work) and headed back to the hotel for a break. And then, of course, we were hungry again. We made our way to a nice little Japanese restaurant. It was a good place, but not my favorite ever.

Today, we headed out to see the butterfly house. It was really fun! There were tons of butterflies inside of a large greenhouse. The greenhouse had a small waterfall and pool, as well as quite a few trees, and beautiful flowers, including orchids. There were a lot of different butterfly varieties. There were so many butterflies zooming around, several nearly collided with me. I also had a few land on my head. I spent so much time in there stalking butterflies. They were fascinating. It was very hot and humid in there though, and so Keith had to leave a little before me.

After the butterfly adventure, we went to Keith's favorite Thai place for lunch. This place is also on Delmar, just across the street. I had another curry dish.

Keith had a very delicious looking noodle bowl with thinly sliced toppings. Since the comic store is right there, we went back to get book Keith wanted and an Ice Bat ugly doll for me. I've wanted one for nearly three years I think. Then, we drove over to the Container Store grand opening! Yay! There were so many cool organizing things, and of course containers, har. Keith was like, "calm down", as I scoped out each isle. I got a few organizers for my relatively new dresser. I'm so excited! We also discovered that there is a Whole Foods next to the container store. Oh, yes! I got a tiny blueberry tart. Yum! There have been rumors that a Whole Foods might open in Columbia. I realllllly hope that turns out to be true! We were so happy about the Whole Foods that we went back there later for dinner. We had sushi and gelato. Columbia used to have a really good gelato place, but it closed. I've been wanting some ever since. I had a really tasty pistachio gelato and then we also got some snacks for later and Keith got some bison chili for himself.

So, now were are back at the hotel, and so tired! Tomorrow we'll be going home. Vacation goes so fast.