Day Thirty-Five: One More Day

Day Thirty-Five started out loudly, with house-shaking thunder jolting me awake at around seven. The rain was torrential, and lightning flashed distantly, then not so distantly. I shivered under the blankets and was grateful for the cozy weight of Ricky, the handsome cat, at the bed's foot. But at nine I forced myself out of bed, exhausted though I was, because we had to get back on the road.

Hours later, we were still at Holly's, having whiled away the morning enjoying our first ability to both waste time online simultaneously. Around eleven, Mike finally decided to go down to the car for clean clothes, so we could start our long and dismal journey across Missouri and Kansas, away from the warmth and comfort of St. Louis. He had almost made it to the door of our room before he proposed that, instead of walking all the way down the stairs, we stay instead an extra day. The benefits to this plan were many: we could spend another day with Aunt Holly, relax and enjoy the city for a while, and save ourselves the horror of spending a night in Kansas. So it was decided and Mike was able to avoid a clean shirt for another few hours.

We walked down to Delmar Circle, which is a really cool little district that holds the charm I think we all hope for every time we visit Second Street in Long Beach. We ate a leisurely lunch at a restaurant that serves noodles of different variety (I had stir-fried udon, Mike had mac & cheese), then hopped down a few more stores to Star Clipper, which was nice enough to supply us with all of the comics we'd missed since leaving DC. The thunderstorm of earlier this morning had turned into a beautiful, sunny day, and yes, we were glad to be enjoying it at less than 65 mph.

No "hooky from hours of driving" day is complete without a trip to the zoo, so Mike and I hopped over to the St. Louis Zoo, proclaimed (by a banner at its entrance) to be the #1 zoo in America. We aren't in a position to disagree, but our position may be biased: we spent our entire hour there surrounded by real live DINOS!!!!!!! They roared at us, clawed the air around us, and even spat neurotoxins at us. And all this was even before we went into the motion simulator, 3-D documentary of the trip to (and subsequent escape from) Dino Island.

We ended the day with delicious Mexican food (I know, we were surprised too) with Holly, basketball with the cats, and the realization that our awesome day was photodocumented entirely on a camera for which we have no USB cord. Tomorrow we make up time by driving for 12 hours. I'd say: utterly worth it.

Today we listened to: purrs from Ricky and stony silence from the other two cats, and the unmistakable roar of a T-Rex about to make you regret the day you ever set foot on Dinosaur Island.

Mystery words: "Spa or kayak?"

Mike!: astoriedyear.blogspot.com