Bloomington to St. Louis, Days 2-4

For those who haven't yet had a chance to stay with Drew out in
Bloomington, it's a great time. Well worth all the time it would take
you to get out there and back. The kid is running a five-star full
service establishment, and I'd encourage you to go visit him. But
really, Bloomington is a nice little town, with a great variety of
restaurants, bars, and parks.

I had to leave Drew this morning, however, to make it to St. Louis by
early afternoon. I realized along the way, that when you're chasing
the sun, time goes backwards! I found myself in St. Louis an hour
earlier than I had planned, which was nice. By the by, I'm writing to
you all from a coffeeshop about 20 miles from my campsite. I went
past St. Louis at first and bought a camp site about half an hour west
of the city, then doubled back. I found a little Italian place called
Mangia Italiano in the "South Grand" area of the city. It seems to be
a sort of punkish, indie kind of neighborhood, but with a lot of high
class Asian restaurants. This Italian place was reasonable though,
and I found out that they make their own pasta on site. I had the
porcini mushroom flavored pasta with sundried tomato cream sauce for
about $8. Awesome. (This pick brought to you by the "RoadTrip USA"
travel guide I bought in a Bloomington book store. The book has
already paid for itself in finding me cheaper places to stay and
cheaper places to eat well)

Anyway, then I went to the Historic Soulard St Louis Farmer's Market
just as it was closing. I got some bread, cheese, and fruit, and went
down to see the Arch. I felt like an incredible tourist taking the
same pictures everyone else was taking, so I decided to forego the
tram to the top (also because it was $10 and took an hour, which
sounded awful) and found a lake to sit by and eat my small picnic.

I was a little sick of all the tourists, and a lot sick of feeling
like one, so I went half an hour southwest of the city to a little
town called Kirkwood where there's a Sculpture Garden. It was by far
the coolest thing I think I've seen so far. I remember something like
it in Israel, and I even have a couple pictures of that one, but this
was far superior. It was getting dark, so I'm not sure that my
pictures will come out well, but if they do I'll be sure to put them
up on Facebook.

That pretty much sums it up. People in St. Louis are pretty nice, and
quite friendly. This is definitely a place I'd like to return to
someday. The nightlife is apparently pretty fun, but I don't feel
comfortable leaving my car in the city to go bar and jazz club hopping
by myself. Anybody interested in a future St. Louis trip?

Bad Joke of the Day, made up on the road:

What did Ethan's vengeful friend say when he saw Ethan's ex-girlfriend?

Miss her, E? I'll annoy! I owe ya!

(Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa! Get it?)

Much love!