St. Louis

So the hubby and I took a little vacation last week to St. Louis for a few days. We haven't had the chance to take our honeymoon but weren't able to make it to Las Vegas just yet, so we decided to compromise and drive a few hours east to get out of town for a while. It was a really refreshing vacation. We both really needed it.

Here's the link to my facebook photo album with all the pictures in it as I didn't have time to post them on here!

I drive a lot. I have a nice, reliable, four-door vehicle and it seems that I'm always driving everyone around and it really is the best car for travel. Now I have heard from people out-of-state that the folks in nearby Johnson County (just over the state line in KS) are some the worst drivers they have ever experienced...and I whole-heartedly agreed; that was BEFORE this trip to St. Louis. I have never been SO frustrated while driving in my life. The speed limit in that general region (we actually stayed just outside of St. Louis in a city called Chesterfield) is apparently just a suggestion! You could go 60 or you could go 85! Turn signals are obsolete, don't even bother. Even if you did use your signal, people completely ignore them as if they have no idea what a turn signal is for! I saw people cut across four lane highways to get to the off-ramp, a gentleman in a giant white van decided that he was exiting prematurely and instead of continuing on the ramp to get back onto the highway at a later time, he jerked his van (at the very last possible moment and WITHOUT a turn signal, if you can believe that) directly in front me and i had to swerve/slam on my breaks to avoid from being hit. A friend of ours that we were visiting with while out there told us that the highway that runs through his city (High Ridge, MO) has about two to three deaths a month, if not more, because of the way people drive. It's like they think it's a god dammed race track!
Worst. Drivers. Ever.

Oh and if you're from St. Louis and you're offended by the above paragraph then I'm going to go ahead and assume that you are one of the horrible drivers I had to deal with and well...you fucking suck. Get a bike.

Anyway!!

We got into town Thursday afternoon and headed straight to the tattoo shop. Both David and I got tattooed while on vacation. Our amazing friend Aaron owns Diablo Ink Tattoo (High Ridge, MO) and we make it a point to attempt to get tattooed by him whenever we head to St. Louey. David started an awesome, giant madusa on his thigh. So far it's just some ghost lines and some black/grey shading. It will be in color and will take about thirty more hours of work.

After he got around three and half hours in, we called it quits and Aaron, along with his awesome girlfriend Cat, took us out to dinner at this great little restaurant in Festus, MO called Petit Paree. The decor was amazing, I really should have taken some pictures. French impressionist paintings all over, pin-ups galore also! It was dimmly lit, there weren't a whole lot of people on our side of the restaurant; nice and quiet.

We had smoked haddock and es gargo for appetizers. Well I had the smoked haddock-which was delicious but I could not bring myself to try the es cargo. I'm sure that it tasted yummy but I'm a texture person and I just couldn't do it. For the main course, Aaron had filet mingon, Cat had grilled tilapia, David had giant scallops and I had a great fried cod. All in all, it was a pretty tasty dinner and a nice way to start off our vacation. After dinner, David was pretty spent after the tattoo so we high-tailed it back to our hotel where we both proceeded to pass out.

Friday morning we got up early, had breakfast at The Original Pankcake House-DELICIOUS. I highly recommend you check this place out if you get the chance. We then headed to Riverfront to scope out the arch. We didn't really have time to wait in line for tickets to go up (we didn't really have an itinerary all weekend and we suffered a bit for it.) After the arch, we drove around trying to find a wax musuem that I had heard about but unable to find out-and getting frustrated-we went back to the hotel to relax for a short while before heading back to the tattoo shop so I could get tattooed (yay!)

My Frankenstein took about two and half hours and I just adore it! It's the perfect compliment to my Bride and I'm getting Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera next (all paintings by Basil Gogo.) After the tattoo, we headed back to the hotel to recouperate and get some dinner. We greatly under-estimated the amount of people that dine at all the restaurants by our hotel and being that it was around 7 or 8, everything was PACKED to the gills. We drove back and forth down the "main drag" until we decided (and were able) to get a table at this great Mexican joint called El Matador. It was exactly the same restaurant as La Fuenta or El Maguey here in KC, so we were happy to know that our food was going to be good and it was! The rest of the evening was spent back at our hotel watching TV and just relaxing. Getting tattooed can take it out of ya!

Saturday we headed back down the riverfront, after visiting the nearby target so I could buy a new belt, jeans and tank top haha. We ate a place called Joey B's where I was disappointed at the fact that all their pizzas were made with provel cheese (apparently a big st. louis thing) so although I was dying for pizza, I got the roast beef and swiss which was pretty good. David got a bacon burger with about five whole onion rings thrown on top with bacon and BBQ sauce. He said it tasted good but it was so ridiculously sloppy, he had a hard time enjoying it. This restaurant had a giant shot list with all the fun and quirky names and what was in each shot. My favorite were the Nazi from Hell-Jaeger, Goldschalger and Rumpleminz. Disgusting. We finished off lunch with two shots of what they had named "Puerto Rican Prostitute" which were delicious. Midori, Bacardi 151 and Pineapple Juice. YUM!

After lunch we finally found the god dammed wax Museum. I loovvveed this place. I officially want to open my own here in KC. We don't have one, and I think I'm just the person to start one up! The first couple of floors were the typical stuff-movie starts, musicians, politicians, some super creepy dwarves, then there was the horror section (the most appropriate time for my camera to die causing me to switch to my phone...i was sad) then the very bottom was the "Not for the faint of heart" section I guess you could call it. It was awesome. I was really impressed with not only the figures themselves, but some of the environments they had created.

We went the casino next because it was down the street and we were actually pretty lucky. He hit about$75 on roullette and I won $60 of a penny slot. Then we went back to the hotel for a while until we decided on dinner. Since he wasn't hungry and I still hadn't gotten my pizza fix, I ate at this place called East Coast Pizza. Not bad, not bad at all.

We didn't want to drive all the way back into the city but didn't want to go back to hotel yet, so we ended up at the Chesterfield Mall. There was a store that we though was long gone called Slackers. They actually sold cd's, movies, posters, action figures and comics! We purchased the last awesome Slayer poster for $8 and I bought The Omen, American History X and a compilation of documentaries about serial killers-all for under $20. The rest of the night we relaxed at the hotel, then we were up bright and early to drive home! All in all it was a really nice vacation and we were not ready to come back, that's for sure.