Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Well, it’s far too late to dig out all the details in my mind now, so I’ll just have to summarize, I think.

In the afternoon we caught a couple of shuttles down to the airport light rail. We realised that every single one of us was wearing glasses…oops, too many hours spent curled up around a book? Down at the station we got ticketses and the organizer, PuppetLady, had us pair up in the buddy system. Feeling like a schoolkid, I hooked up with MissEfficiency, or vice versa, and that was us.

We headed down on the train to Laclede’s Landing. To say that we had a hoot is understatement of the year. There we were, clad in Book Crossing garb of various sorts, dumping books all over the place. Then people came on and started noticing the books, picking them up sneakily, leafing through them, adding them to purses and the like. I am not sure what was funnier, the people finding the books or the suddenly silent and breathless, trying not to die of laughter, Book Crossers waiting to see their catches happening. But the highlight was when the guys standing up found the one in the map/timetable holder, looked up to see everyone with their Book Crossing gear, and laughed and said “thanks for the book”.

Can’t even put words to it, as it’s a very Book-Crossing specific thrill, but we were, all of us, hugely thrilled.

We got to the right station and headed off for a group shot of the Arch, following a trail of books that had been left by a previous group. This was where the infamous “Book Crossers Gone Wild” book was staged, and poor Voyager was lumbered with taking about two dozen identical shots with different cameras. I got MissEfficiency to take a rare shot of me, with the Arch, and then we headed down towards the thing. She told me about her trip to Antarctica, when she won an essay competition and had a fantastic time. :-)

So, we were at the arch. Sunlight was glinting off the top and it was spectacular beyond compare. I had a geocache set of coordinates with me and M.I. indulged me while I tried to find the plaque which was the first clue, and I did, but then gave up because there will be many other opportunities to geocache when I’m not also snarfing and being a tourist and nursing a sick foot.

I had no wish to go into the arch today, and it seemed that neither did M.I., so we headed up alongside the Mississippi for a while and then up into town. We were soon being history geeks and snapping the same pictures of plaques and landmarks pretty much in tandem. ;-) We got a good look at the beautiful old courthouse, and some excellent views of the buildings and the arch from a square a bit further on. It was rather warm, and we took a break, just about the same time that thousands of Cardinals fans exploded out of the stadium. I never saw so much red…M.I. left a book on the bench opposite and we sat there while a lady swiped it into her purse. Definitely a sneaky catch. :-)

After that our general direction was towards the light rail again. My foot was not enjoying itself any more and it was slow going; my companion was very patient. There was a huge queue going into the muni station so we sat and watched a homeless man directing the traffic until a few trainloads went by, then headed down into the station. We let one chockablock full train go by and caught the next. Then we headed to Union Station.

As we understood it, we were supposed to meet other Book Crossers there for something to eat, but we didn’t see any until well after the meeting time. We headed to the food court and had a much-welcome A&W root beer float. That was a great suggestion, M.I. :-) Many slurps later, we went looking for postcards and wrote them to a backdrop of cheers and gospel from the strange sing-for-your-supper Fudgery below. Eventually BXers started to appear and we joined some of them for an outside drink and snacks which was really mellow and enjoyable. It made me feel like I was on holiday in Slovenia, only everyone spoke American.

Tiredly, I caught a ride home with Voyager and a couple others afterwards, and there was just about enough time for a shower before the final evening conference session. The Book Crossing staff had to leave early, so we wouldn’t be seeing them; therefore they wanted to brainstorm with us.

We were all tired, and it was a bit frustrating for all concerned, I think. I don’t remember much now, but we did come up with the idea of generic bookplates for those who didn’t want to be collectors or who didn’t like a specific style. There was a whole list of products suggested that we were asked if we would buy, including some very silly ones, like a toothbrush (and what colour pills were we taking the morning that idea came up?). They have a problem with storage space and sales of things like t-shirts wasn’t what they wanted them to be.

After that it was a case of heading off to bed and falling asleep really quickly. I can’t remember if this was the night a few of us sat watching ice hockey in Shen’s room, but it probably was.

Saturday 17th April

I woke up anything other than bright and early. Tzurriz was about to meet others for breakfast; I was too late, having actually slept, but since I was still stuffed from the previous night’s cheese adventures I wasn’t terribly upset about that. I skipped breakfast, and headed off downstairs. We had a conference room outside which were tables full of books and
goodies, t-shirts for sale (I bought one, they were exquisite), and a display about Book Crossing and Geocaching from nyisutter.

That was a lot of books!

When I went in some complete strangers waved me over, and thus we became friends. :-) I got to meet independencemo and portias, and very nice they both were too. They had come over from the Kansas side of Missouri for the convention. We chatted until nine, when the first festivities began. 4Libros, feeling a bit nervous, gave us a talk on release techniques. It was geared towards question-and-answer, but she shared her thoughts and showed us what she did to prepare books: a heck of a lot more than I do, but one can’t argue with success: she has a great catch rate.

Then Ron came on, to talk about Book Crossing. He had a nice presentation with Far Side cartoons. Anyone who uses Far Side cartoons can’t be a bad person. We were given a timeline for Book Crossing, and were amazed at how far it’s come along. His enthusiasm and love of the project shone through, and yet it’s at a stage now where it must be supported or get into a lot of trouble. Salient facts:

• Ron is the dreamer, Bruce is the tech/implementer, and Heather singlehandedly runs the supply store, which is a problem in terms of storage space, stress from stroppy Book Crossers (”got my order wrong! waaaah!”) and sheer overload. Along with Ron’s wife, who could not make it this weekend, that makes four people - count them, four! - running the huge enterprise. (They just hired a programmer/webmaster, Dan, whom they can’t really afford.)

• Only about five thousand Book Crossers have Wings.

• The site costs tens of thousands of dollars a MONTH to run. The number quoted would be enough to pay my bills and food and gasoline and have some left over for fun…for a year. Over half of that is the huge bandwidth we generate. (This wasn’t a terrible surprise to me - I knew it would run way up high.)

• None of the founders have drawn a wage yet. They are heavily invested in the site, but they’re not profiting or even breaking even.

They ended the session with a brainstorm on how to make money. They had some ideas which made us scratch our heads a bit. For one, they wanted to do a separate non-profit site for authors who whine about BX taking away their profits. Um. The thing about non-profits is that you can’t donate to businesses in that way (an author is a business, in a way). You could donate to a charity designated by the author, but not to the author. The idea was that readers would contribute a buck or two to the author who registered there if they read his/her book and liked it. We noted that if the BX team was really so overloaded - and we believed that they were - then surely it was not a good idea to start something new like this, but to concentrate on leveraging the existing members for their support?

Someone mentioned about asking authors to donate signed copies of books for auction. The BX team said they had better get that started. I had to bite down on my tongue to not speak. When I investigated competitions for promoting Rhaeva, on Book Crossing (some will remember these and some will not), they suggested that I send a signed copy for auction. I did. There was never any acknowledgement of its arrival, nor was there any response to my follow-up. I don’t know if it arrived, or if they rejected it, or what. But that is one of the few times I have ever felt disappointed in Book Crossing, and I think they need to concentrate on the resources they already have instead of what might be.

There was another suggestion to get round the problem of new users coming to the site and thinking that it meant “Yay! I’m going to get free books!” This involved a kind of points-based barter system. This went down like a “lead turd in a punchbowl” (Shendoah, you’ll never live that one down). I couldn’t think of any way to make it work, though I can
understand why they thought it was a good idea.

That is my remembrance of that session. And let’s not forget the basic idea for Book Crossing. There is/was a site where one would tag a disposable camera, leave it somewhere, and you could take a picture and pass it on, then send it back to the site. Ron came across that and immediately knew he had to do something along those lines. After rejecting Garden Tool Crossing and Kitchen Utensil Crossing (Skillet Crossing), he came up with books. And here we are. But Skillet Crossing may have been laugh of the weekend.

At some point there was a nice break with juice and cookies and stuff.

After that Rich Shapero came on to talk about his book. Ron and Rich took separate armchairs on a stage, and did a kind of informal chat/interview. It felt a bit like Ebert and Roepert, the film reviewers. Rich talked about his inspiration for the book, why he chose Book Crossing, and what the book was about. I had not yet received a copy, but found the chat interesting and at times amusing. He genuinely seemed to want to get feedback for the book, and there was no sense of us being ripped off, which for some reason others had decided was why he was giving us access to thousands of free copies (sigh).

He explained that he had indeed set up his own publishing company, and why. Those reasons resonated with me; I am not of the school of thought that self-published equals bad: that’s a narrow and inaccurate view. The conventional publishing industry is interested in big profits and is quite conservative, and good books slip through because they don’t have the
potential to make enough profit. As a participant in the very professional self-publishing community, I could only agree with his reasons.

Some others were being interviewed by a newspaper through this, and a lady from the radio station came to record the sessions. Rich had his own TV crew there as well. Found out that he was from San Francisco.

At the end, Rich’s publicist told us about the release challenge, which is supposed to be in May, and showed us the cool new copies of the book - the first ones ever to have a BCID printed inside the front cover! And I got a copy, at last.

Then it was lunchtime. They put out a wonderful buffet spread for us: it was really very impressive. Salads and platters and stuff like that. Ron came to join us and was two people away; Bruce was two people away in the other direction. I was drowned by noise from our table and the tables behind me and couldn’t hear a word that either of them was saying, nor
concentrate on any one conversation. Like I said, bad seating karma. ;-)

As we walked into the hotel, and were getting signed in, a telephone call came in for me. I was a bit mind-boggled: who would be calling me? I was handed the phone and a voice tentatively asked, “Can I speak to Linda Moore…” I said, chuckling, “It’s me!” and it turned out to be Shendoah…she had just got in and was trying to find out where I was!
Talk about spectacular timing…

We went at once to hang out: Shen, Tzurriz and Jason all in Shen’s room. Shen had discovered that the TV made magical internet noises, but after paying her magical ten dollars discovered that it was a) monstrously slow and b) very unwieldy. We sat there and cracked up as she failed dismally to get the drop-down bar to select anything like “St. Louis” for her release alerts. We also laughed at ourselves for being so excited about the presence of TV internet in the first place. As Shendoah put it, “What a bunch of geeks!” Even if the reality just didn’t live up to the idea.

Finally it was time to go down to the bar for the initial meet-up. I decided that I would be much nicer to know if I took a shower, so I took a detour. I noticed that a little stream of books had started to appear in the corridor, placed strategically on coffee tables.

A word about the hotel at this stage: it really was pretty classy, much classier than I’m used to, and I liked it very much. The artwork on the walls was, at times, a bit peculiar (like the picture of Mt. Vesuvius or something exploding with people running away shielding their heads - very relaxing, that one) - but everything was glass and brass and shiny stuff. And nice little bottles in the bathroom and fluffy towels, and little coffee tables with flowers/ornaments. Can you tell I don’t go to this kind of thing often?

Clean and showered, and much nicer to be around, I made my way down to the bar. There I saw more Book Crossers than I’ve ever seen at once, and was greeted unanimously with smiles and grins. A lady I later learnt was “The Wheelbarrow” reached out and gave me a lovely custom nametag that she’d made, with the schedule on the back and my state flag on the front; this came in very handy over the next few days. Names and faces were thrown around; for the first time I met mojosmom, who is about the most elegant lady I have seen in a long time, and if I ever reach half that elegance in my lifetime I’ll be doing well.

As it turned out, conversation was kind of hard to hold in more than the immediate space around you. There was a lot of noise! I couldn’t reach around to meet anyone properly, really, so kind of hoped for a quieter environment somewhat later.

A bit after I arrived, there was a sudden round of applause, and of course Ron, Bruce and Heather walked in. They were a bit taken aback, and pleased, and awww shucksy, but they took it in their stride. They are, after all, the Book Crossing heroes!

They were nice enough to do the rounds, meeting everyone, and there’s a nice picture of me about to shake Ron’s hand, which is about the closest I got to having a conversation with him all weekend! But I did appreciate that gesture and effort to meet everyone, if only to get a name/user name and smile.

A few of us had established that we’d go out and eat fondue this evening, down in the Loop again (I think that Shendoah saw it while we were driving through, or something). This was beyond my budget, but Shen offered to treat me, and I said okay but she had to let me treat her when I had enough money to be lavish again. She said sure, and thus a deal was
struck. :-)

We went out in convoy. As best I can remember, here’s who came: thewheelbarrow, grover3d, First-Noel, me, Tzurriz, Shendoah, Marina, and Jason.

I have bad seating karma. Being introverted and not particularly pushy in real life, I need to be somewhere where I don’t have to shout to be heard. I just find it exhausting to make that extra effort, I can’t help it. Unfortunately I usually end up in a corner, even though I’m aware of the problem and try to figure it out. This time I sat in the middle but suddenly ended up scooting over for reasons totally unrelated to my thinking brain. Gah! So I never really got a chance to talk to anyone
other than Shendoah, Tzurriz and Jason, except maybe in semaphore.

Still, one communicates, and I could listen, and I still had a good time.

So, for the record, this is what one does with fondue.

A well-dressed, good-looking young man comes and explains what it’s all about. It sounds complicated. Two people who’ve done this all before explain to us what it’s about, make suggestions, and so things are decided.

Rule #1 when fondueling: have people with you who know about fondue.

The good-looking young man turns on the strange widget on the table which happens to be a built-in heater. Pots are added, and after a while, the pots begin to steam.

Rule #2: don’t touch the pots. That steam’s there for a reason. (No, nobody did.)

Young man shows up with cheese. Dumps cheese into pots, adds flavourings, stirs like crazy. Does both simultaneously. All present are happy with such grand cheese entertainment.

Rule #3… oh, forget it. Let’s just eat some cheese.

Platters of stuff to dip in were provided. The stuff included bread cubes, apples, and many things which don’t seem to have lodged in my memory. Each person sitting at the table and fondueling has a set of prongs with a differently-coloured handle. These colours are important for later.

You prong a small hapless piece of food, dunk it in the molten cheesy goodness, twirl, and munch.

It takes a long time. It tastes good. Conversation suddenly quietens down as this kind of eating is concentration-intensive. Bits of stuff disappear into the pot and are fished for.

When we’re all cheesed out, the young man comes back and replaces these pots with other pots. Various stocks are poured in, and, again, recipes are created before our very eyes.

Platters of meat, fish and veges come our way. We are told cooking times for the meat. I recently fell off the wagon from not eating meat since January, and found the meat way too rich and not to my taste. I ate some, but found the spuds and squash and other veges jot the spot much better. This is where those coloured prongs are important. You dunk the item you are cooking in, wait, and talk. The colour alerts you to which prong to grab when you think it’s ready.

The whole meal took three hours. It was a unique experience, a first for me, and I did enjoy it, though I found myself truly exhausted by the end. The company was grand, the food very tasty, and I had a fun time. I was also very, very glad to find my way to bed afterwards, where it took me, oh, maybe ten seconds to fall asleep. ;-)

So, as previously noted, the zoo was round the corner. We got duly parked in a space of my spotting, and then we headed in.

Tzurriz was small-kid excited, being a big fan of zoos. She said the only reason she wasn’t running and skipping and stuff was because my foot was knackered. I told her to just go ahead, I would not like to hold anyone up. I’m not sure if she did much running and skipping, but we struck up a pace that sort of worked, I think. We laughed a lot; it was a nice place
to be, lots of kids of all ages having a grand time, lots of fine animals in above-average accommodations for a zoo.

Damn foot. It was hot and thus it began to swell. My right foot was hurting too, and I later discovered that all that stupid limping around caused my right foot to overcompensate and grow a lovely big blister.

Bears were first. I don’t really like bears, something confirmed when one of them turned around and took a dump in our direction. I took pictures for Griz (of the bears, not of the bear dumping) and then we went in search of penguins.

There was a special penguin exhibit on, and first we got to stand outside and watch the little critters bouncing. I think that is why they were one of the two animals I loved first (the other was elephants). They bounce, and they’re cute. I have pictures of a splash where they leapt into the water just as I pressed the button on my camera. ;-)

We stood in a bit of a line for a while, and then went inside. Immediately, icy cold air conditioning blasted us and the temperature dropped forty degrees. Inside it had been done up to resemble an antarctic environment and you could see the penguins swimming about underwater. That really got my attention. Those things zoom! They fly underwater…I got a
huge kick out of watching them and must have been grinning like a loon. Several different species were accommodated, and later on there were puffins too, which I’d actually never seen before. But I was there for the penguins.

It was over too soon, and of course you were spat out into a penguin gift shop, so I got a postcard. And then out we went into the eighty-degree sun again.

For me, the rest of the trip was an annoying struggle between foot fatigue (not so much pain any more) and wanting to see critters. We wandered by some prairie dogs which, to me, looked like shell peanuts with legs. They would wiggle into their little prairie dog grooves and peep at you, as if you couldn’t see them. Very funny. We also wandered past those strange
critters called flamingos, which reminded me that the first zoo I ever went to was Flamingo Park. Their knees bend backwards, apparently.

We looked at a zoo map. My brain would not function and I could not relate what was on the map to what was in front of me. Normally I do okay with maps. Jason got a picture of Tzurriz and I scratching our heads. Eventually I gave up and let him take care of it.

Jason wanted to see the apes, and I don’t like apes, so we parted company and I took a break. Actually, first I went around the reptile house, and enjoyed seeing the giant snakes and lizards, albeit rather cursorily. Then I found a place to sit outside where I overheard a lady announce in disgust “nobody in their right mind goes in there”. I smiled to myself.
Rhaeva 2 features flying serpents, and it’s nice to know how large I need to make them for that to be feasible. ;-)

I didn’t have to wait long before the ape-visitors came back, and we moved in the general direction of big cats. On the way we found a monkey house, and now I know what Stephen King meant in his book “The Stand” about the *reek*. Ugh! I like monkeys a bit better than apes, especially the little marmots, but they really aren’t my favourite. This was where Jason got the only shot of me in which I looked *exactly* as tired and sore as I felt. ;-)

Sometimes I get really frustrated with my body parts. My legs were up to a lot more walking; my feet just aren’t. But, you know, going to the gym three times a week for the last few months helped a lot. I doubt I would have been able to hold up even this well without it, so some things work out.

At last we found the big cats, which, like small cats, were mostly just lying about being idle. I saw lions, tigers, mountain lions, and a leopard. They tended to be hiding in the shade, like sensible critters do. And that was pretty much the end of the critter-watching; we went down a long ramp and Tzurriz treated us to drinks, which at that stage were much-wanted, and watched giant bumble bees defy the laws of physics and peahens wander by, expecting to be fed.

We did make a side trip into the gift shop, where I found and failed to buy a “Penguin Crossing” sign. I’m given to whim, and try to not buy on a whim, especially when there seems to be no apparent use for an item. But I was thinking about it after the convention and still regretted it, which means that there is probably a use for it I don’t know on the conscious
level, because that is how things usually work out. A kind book-crosser who lives in St. Louis helped me out and it should be arriving in a week or so. :-)

15 April

Sometime after nine I heard female-sounding footsteps and the unmistakable sound of heavy luggage being dragged along. I thought, “I bet I know who that is,” and was halfway to the door before the knock came. Tzurriz arrived, big smile, looked knackered. She had books. Lots of them. ;-)

We did basic helloes, but after talking on LJ for a while there wasn’t much need for ice-breaking. She was hungry; I’d only had a vending machine dinner, so was up for something real. So, first we tried the 24-hour diner I had seen on the way up, only to realise it really wasn’t open. So then we saw that the Holiday Inn had a restaurant, so we gave that a shot. We
had half an hour until it closed, and being classy, they let us sit around eating long after it closed to new diners.

Nice hotel, too.

So we chatted, and got to know one another a bit, and laughed, and ate. The waitress was great and had a genuine sense of humour. The food was good, too.

Then we went back to the room and it wasn’t long before bedtime. Was going to read but got chatting instead. It was kind of like being at school camp - lots of things to blather about, and the sleep can wait. Pretty fun.

16 April 2004

Woke up way too early, especially given the time zone change. Went down for the free doughnuts and coffee because the cleaning crew never bothered to clean out the coffee machine properly or replace the coffee. Tzurriz bumped into jfroebe and so I got to meet him and we chatted a bit. Packed our bags, checked out, went to the next hotel down the street, and as it was (sort of) too early to check in, let them hide the bags for us. We got to hang out in his room (he got there early this morning) and look at strange reality shows and gadgetry. We talked and expressed disgust about the not-so-great Book Burning Controversy and got to peek a bit at stuff like email and the forums. When I realised that I had received 40 emails in the two days I was away, I decided to not even think about it at this stage. ;-)

First impressions of Jason: very smart, wicked (and moderately sick ;-) sense of humour, quiet on the surface but I don’t think his *mind* ever goes quiet. He has a vivid imagination. ;-) He’s also a gentleman: see below.

Sonora was there needing help to bring in boxes and goodie bags, so we all helped. Jason seemed to get most of the boxes. There was a certain amount of moving up and down elevators and along corridors to deliver Stuff. Voyager, her husband, showed up too. They were staying in the hotel for the weekend. I also met Marina (w), First-Noel, solittletime, and a couple of others. There just didn’t seem to be any ice-breaking like when you meet strangers; all of us have gabbled on so much online that it just felt like going from a 2-D friendship to a 3-D friendship. We laughed a lot.

I particularly enjoyed bumping into TracyShannon because of our mutual friendship with AmberLee and the fact that she is a seriously cool lady. :-)

I quickly heard that Voyager has a motorcycle and had ridden it here, so got to check it out. 1300cc Kawasaki Voyager - it was very cool indeed! Another fun vehicle to admire was Jason’s BX-mobile: an SUV in Book Crossing yellow with book crossing gadgets (licence plate, cling, etc) and a nice penguin (Tuxedo the Linux penguin).

The general idea was to head out to lunch. I went down there with Voyager and Sonora, and I believe Marina, somanybooks, and First-Noel. I am pretty sure Grover3d was in there somewhere, but wouldn’t swear to it. For those
who are reading this story and know you were missed, just throw a sponge at me. It was all happening kind of fast and furious and there were a lot of names and places to get used to. ;-)

We headed to University City with lots of cool old buildings, including a Scientology church and a very big old synagogue which just about had to be the B’Nai Temple. The city hall was also an intriguing round building. Before I left, I had noticed a place called Blueberry Hill which I thought was going to be a cool place to eat. I was quite happy when I found out
that we were being taken there. As luck would have it, we found two parking spots together, we pooled quarters for the meter, and off we went down the Delmar Loop Hall of Fame: stars and plaques for all people remotely associated with St. Louis and environs. I had a minor panic attack trying to figure out how all that could possibly fit into Markeroni, and solved it by ignoring it completely. One day when I have a lot of time I can come and log them all, and some very keen Markeroon can log each one individually if they choose. For now, I don’t even want to think about it: it is a landmark geek’s nightmare. ;-)

Blueberry Hill was fun. It’s a rock memorabilia place and the walls are stuffed with dolls, pictures, cards, and well…rock memorabilia. (Duh.) We met with Nelle and Miss Efficiency there, all the way from Toronto. Seating was first-come first-served, but a smart waitress let us know there were some long tables in the darts room that we could take over if
we could handle eating where people smoked. Everyone compromised, and the smoke wasn’t that bad anyway. So we all got to sit together.

A bit later we were joined by The Wheelbarrow (she’s far too nice to be a wheelbarrow, but that’s the name of her nifty Book Crossing project: she pushes a neon yellow barrow round Sonora farmer’s market and it happens to be full of books. ;-)

We had fun, getting to know one another, chatting, and the like. It was kind of loud in there and I quickly lost track, but not to worry. We were just getting to the point of “how the heck do we figure out the bill now” when a few of us ran off and got taken to the basement, down steep horror-movie stairs, to see the locked Elvis Room. Which is a room full of…guess what? You got it. Elvis memorabilia.

When we got back, Jason had paid the entire bill for all of us. Told you he was a gentleman.

With lunch over, the group split into component parts depending on transportation and preference. The zoo seemed awfully tempting, as did access to a vehicle just in case (my foot status was :: ouch ::). So I hooked up with Jason and Tzurriz and we went to the zoo, not too far round the corner. I got acquainted with Tux the Penguin in the back.

Eventually the minibus showed up and I clambered on. I was the only tourist! The driver was quite cheerful and nice, and signed me up there on the bus; I then got the pick of all the seats, and we proceeded.

I was sitting there trying to scribble down the name of every building that was described so that I could log it later at Markeroni. I saw so much it was worse than a lecture when the tutor has runonathemouth disease. Downtown seems to be skyscrapers and columns, statues and fountains with the odd TV/radio studio thrown in. It’s really beautiful; modern and old mingle effortlessly, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a variety in such a small area. At times the road was bumpy and my handwriting was nearly illegible, but I got almost all of it down. Matching what I scribbled to what is on the National Register of Historic Places was a bit harder, as each building seems to have several different names, and the modern was mixed in with the new.

We headed past the Busch stadium and I noticed a marker outside the Marriot hotel; one day, I thought to myself, I would like to see what it said. The old courthouse was something else; it was modelled on the White House, and it was there that Dred Scott (sp?) sued for his freedom. He had been moved from a free state to a slave state, and became a slave again.
Since he repeatedly lost his case, eventually someone bought him and freed him, and he had a few months of freedom before he died. But the case was a landmark case in Missouri’s history. I hope that my understanding of this is correct; I know I will do some more research later to verify it, but for now I’m just writing.

Next we headed down to Laclede’s Landing, where I saw cobblestones and old buildings, very briefly. Then, suddenly, we were by the Mississippi - and there was a whopping great big arch there! Whoah! That thing’s HUGE!

When I first saw the Arch, I imagined it as a flimsy structure, almost 2-D; close up, of course, that’s not the case. I had no idea of how one might get a little tram/pod up there, but now, so close, it made sense. We drove right by horses and carts and saw the arch looking up some steps. I was beyond impressed and very glad that I would be going back for a closer
look soon. Actually had a flutter of excitement as I passed it - it was so sudden and unexpected; we turned a corner and there it was.

Nearby is Eads Bridge, which was built despite the architect being told such a thing was not possible. It looked very possible to me! You can walk over it, but the driver said that this might not be such a good idea: at the other side is East Saint Louis in Illinois, which is noted for being a dangerous place, and is also where Jimmy Conners comes from. My Mam would find that interesting, she is an avid tennis watcher and that name rings a bell from Wimbledon fortnight (when no other TV is allowed ;-) So you see, a very dangerous place indeed. :: nods sagely and with humour. ::

Next we headed across the river and from Independent City of Saint Louis to Saint Louis County. Not having independent cities in California, I’m not sure how it all works, but at least I now know that there’s a distinction. As far as I can guess, the city functions as a county in and of itself, making its own ordinances etc, and the county does its own thing. Or something.

Here, the landscape opens up a bit and you see the skyscrapers in the distance. I was introduced to a bunch more buildings, but nothing really stands out in my memory and the light went off, so I can’t refer to my notes just now. We were headed to the Shaw Gardens. The driver asked me if I were from Sheffield, which astonished me, as I’m from about 40 miles north of Sheffield. I wanted to know why, and he said that Shaw, who founded the Botanical Gardens, was from Sheffield. So, I came thousands of miles to see a garden created by a Yorkshireman. This made me laugh.

I was given a meet-up time and signed in, then I browsed in the rather nice gift shop for a while and came up with some postcards and little puzzle and sticker books for Bethany, my niece. She will be nine next month, and this time I got bored with the usual gifts and am compiling a goodie box with lots of different little things. Then I headed upstairs where there was a cafe, and got soup and sandwich for a decent price - surprising for a place like this.

I was quite confused; you enter a big airy, glassy building, like a giant conservatory, and at first I thought the entire gardens are indoors. However, if you just keep going, you find yourself outside on a lovely springlike Missouri day - with the temperature somewhere in the eighties!

It was a stunningly beautiful garden. I loved it and would like to go back and do a much more leisurely exploration. Everywhere were displays of bright spring flowers: tulips, daffodils, and a garden of roses. Trees lined everything, and there was a sculpture called the bell tree which I heard a long time before I saw - like a giant wind chime, lovely and
peaceful. Fountains and pools were everywhere, as were some slightly dodgy naked prancing nymphs. Wasn’t so sure about those. ;-) It wasn’t the nakedness, it was that they seemed a bit fru-fru and silly.

I took a wander through a long greenhouse with a stained glass front. Inside were semi-tropical plants and flowers with a Victorian styling and roof. I was startled to see it was almost a clone of the greenhouses at Temple Newsam Gardens, very close to my home where I grew up. But then, if Shaw was a Yorkshireman and the greenhouses came out of the same era, perhaps that wasn’t so odd - but it still gave me pause.

I was looking for the Japanese garden, but my foot was in pain so as soon as I realised it was quite far, I decided to head back and sit by the fountain and read a bit. It was a very good place to just sit and contemplate the nature of the universe. While sitting down at least, the universe felt good.

I headed out just as the driver came to see if he could spot me, and I noticed that about a dozen other people had appeared as if by magic on the bus. They had been on another tour, and they apparently coincided at this stage. It was mildly surreal. A few of them chatted a bit, but we were soon on the way to Forest Park, and too busy looking out of the windows.

Forest Park is one of the biggest urban parks in the USA. Originally it wasn’t wanted because it was so far away that it took half a day to reach! But in time, as we all know, distances shorten, and things like metro trains appear.

We got a view of the World Fair pavilion (built after the world fair in 1904, or on the site of the World Fair, or something like that), looking up stepped fountains/streams to the top of the hill. We also passed the Muny, an partly outdoor theatre where, apparently, the first thousand seats are free and covered, and the expensive seats plonk you out there
in the rain. The Art Museum looked like a grand old London museum with its columns and grey stone, and then we passed the zoo (no free look at the penguins though, like at Whipsnade Zoo in England), and the lake with the paddle boats, and a few other pretty features. My impression was of bigness and greenness. My companions’ impression was of hunger, as they did not do their homework and had not had lunch when they had a chance to. ;-)

From there we went down Billionaire Alley, a stretch of Lindell avenue which is lined, on one side only, with incredibly austentatious houses in a wide range of styles, all costing way too much money to even think about. The very last one was where Judy Garland filmed part of “Meet Me In Saint Louis” (maybe I should rent it from Netflix and see if I recognise
the house?). Then it was Central West End, which reminded me of parts of London, for more aged houses and anecdotes and descriptions of pizza places (Imo’s Pizza is a local speciality with really thin pizzas) and restaurants, for the hungry travellers. I think the driver was a bit wicked, actually. ;-)

I was pretty much ready for the tour to end, actually, with so much information to absorb and digest. But we did have one more stop, and it just about did for my foot with the steps I had to climb - but it was worth it.

The Basilica of St. Louis is a Catholic church which on the outside looks like a classic European church - all curves and towers. But inside, the walls and ceiling are covered in mosaic, all made from glass - so it glitters and is wonderful. I can’t even begin to describe it: never have I seen anything like it, and I ended up walking right the way through the
church on both sides, gawping at it all. Wow. That’s all I can say. May be one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen.

Finally we were there for our drop-offs, and I was back at the Hyatt. At one point the driver asked me how I was enjoying my stay there. I wish! But I did get to tell him about Book Crossing while explaining I was staying at a different hotel. This was just the pickup point most easily reached from a metro station. And no, I didn’t have a book to release. ;-)

So I headed off back to the metro, and wearily called the shuttle bus, and settled into my motel room to give my foot time to recover and stop cursing me for walking so darn much. I tried to match places I had seen to listings on the National Register that I’d brought with me, and didn’t have much luck. But I had a great day and am very glad the idea was
suggested to me as I’d never heard of Gray Line Tours before.

This was my tourism day. I had planned to wander round downtown St. Louis, where every second building seemed to be some kind of landmark, but my foot precluded that much walking. So, I had booked myself onto a Gray Lines “historical bus tour”.

I woke up way too bright and early for the kind of night I had, and wandered down to the lobby to get my free coffee and doughnut. It was only about eight when I caught a ride to the metro with the motel shuttle.

The metro was fun. It operated just like the trams in Dortmund when I was living there: buy the ticket, validate it, ride. I’m sure I got the validation ticket printed on the wrong side though, but it was early ;-)

One thing I noticed about St. Louis almost immediately was that it was green, and there were many, many trees. Like a city in a forest. The metro takes you over the freeway, and down a channel from station to station. We passed old industrial buildings and the university. Some had graffiti and some did not. For a while I was the only white face in the car; that was a new experience for me. What I noticed more than anything was that nobody ever sat next to me, and I’m still not sure whether to think anything about that. More than anything it made me a little sad, especially since it was obvious: I had the only empty seat. This white face would not have minded a black neighbour in the least. It just gave me pause, a little.

Before long I was at Union Station, where I took the nice friendly stinky elevator to the top and wandered into the landmark. Outside, you can see that it used to be a great big railway station; inside, it’s just a mall, and not quite as interesting. I liked the peace of early-morning, when nothing had really got started; there’s a pretty fountain and bridge, and
nobody is around.

My foot was bugging me, and my first task was to find where I was supposed to leave for my tour, an hour and a half later (told you I was early!) It took some finding, but the Hyatt hotel was tracked down to its lair and I confirmed my spot. The hotel itself was quite magnificent, with architecture reminiscent of a fairytale castle, liveried doormen, and polished brass luggage racks. It also had a plaque stating that it was a “Historic Hotel of America”, something I’d never heard of, so I’ll be
looking for new lists soon.

Inside, I found a wall with about five plaques, all giving the station different designations, including a brand new one: Civic Engineers’ Landmarks. Woo-hoo. I snapped away happily. I looked at some of the numbered plaques that told the story of the station. Apparently there had been an extortionate toll on the bridges, so someone decided to build a train station and break the monopoly. Good for them.

Food places weren’t open, though food was clearly being cooked, and while there was a Starbucks, I also found a little independent place and got coffee and a bagel there. It was great coffee and extremely friendly service. After that, I sat down and read until it was time to stand up and wait for my bus, which was late.

My conclusion: malls without people are strange. The security guards were the first on the scene, followed by a few people in suits and janitorial staff. It was like being in a ghost town, with the windows stuffed with unavailable promise. As a landmark, it was okay from the outside; the little museum was nice and had a cool model railway. But inside it’s a
mall, and malls, barring a few local specialities, are malls.

I was packing until the last minute, and still forgot my hairbrush and penguin. ;-)

Don gave me a ride on the back of Max to the airport. Managed to dump gas on my luggage while filling up, but no harm done. I told him he didn’t need to see me off to the plane, I could manage. It wasn’t far, and my foot is getting better all the time.

The first thing I did was wander up a little ways and snarf the historical marker there! Right on the site of the airport there used to be a ranch, and the honeybee was introduced to California there. I had to chuckle: laden with a heavy bag, I was still mucking with my camera and GPS unit (which wouldn’t latch onto any satellites, so I never did get the reading).

Looking like the tourist I was, I checked in and went through security - there wasn’t much - and up to the United gates. My plane was on time, boarding was very smooth and well-organised, and before much longer I was on the way to Denver.

I love flying. I don’t do it often, so the novelty never wears off. When you book online you can select your seat, and I chose window seats on each of my four flights. My favourite part is the liftoff, of course, when you have that eyeball-flattening acceleration and see the world drift away from underneath you. We quickly left Silicon Valley behind and crossed the Sierra Nevada…I was listening to the air traffic control channel and heard them request a less bumpy altitude before they announced it over the tannoy.

I didn’t read on the plane, I bought an airline lunch, catered by TGI Fridays - I guess they don’t feed you anymore, but the lunch was better than airline and airport food. Beside that, I just looked at stuff - mountains and desert and the like. I love the desert. Vast tracts of empty, unoccupied-by-human land. A wildness that I crave and don’t find where I live, but am grateful for when I reach it.

Salt Lake City passed, and then we were on the descent to Denver, Colorado, where I would switch planes. We crossed right over the Rocky Mountains, my first glimpse of that snow-covered range. I was surprised to find that Denver wasn’t in the mountains, but was in the plains off to the east - very flat plains, it seemed, and agricultural rather than wild. I’ve heard that the prairie is disappearing, and it does seem that way, as we encroach on the wild land.

In Denver, the first thing I wanted was a bathroom. There, I saw my first tornado shelter sign. Much relieved, I went and dug out a postcard from a gift shop. Then, looking for my gate, I encountered yet another historical marker, completely unexpected this time. Actually, I don’t recall right now the theme, other than that it commemorates some kind of plane, and was put up by the family who invented it, or something like that. This is why I take pictures of the plaques for future reading and why I set up Landmark Wisdom - to record those critters for future generations who are not flying through Denver ;-)

It was at this point that I realised that I had left Penguin behind, and was disappointed.

Flight number two was fun and smooth; I was very impressed with United. Topographically speaking it wasn’t as interesting; we flew right over Kansas and it’s hundreds of miles of patchwork quilt - all the same, laid out in squares. But that flight was only two hours, and we got there a bit early. It passed quickly.

You fly in right over downtown St. Louis, so with a big grin I got to see the skyscrapers and caught my first glimpse of the Arch. It was magnificent and I got happy butterflies in my tummy seeing it. Sort of a magic moment, though I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve wanted to see the Arch for quite a long time now. I laughed at myself because I was thinking “if I could just identify them, I’d now have about 40 snarfs just on this fly-by” ;-)

Unfortunately for the sanity of my foot, which by now had had enough already, the United gate was almost as far from the exit as you can get, and there were no nice conveyor belts like at Denver and San Jose. However, it was as easy as can be to get a ride to the motel - I was staying the first two nights at Days Inn. It tickled me to see exactly where the Holiday Inn was - right next door!

I checked in, hobbled up a flight of stairs to an adequate but not particularly nice room, and chilled. I decided not to go out for food tonight, but to have a vending machine dinner. I left a message for Don that I was there and he could call me, and asked him to relay information to Tzurriz about the room etc. Then I settled in to read and watch local news, which is always cool - it’s nice to see that the news is the same no matter where you go. ;-)

I had an unexpected call though - Sonora showed up! It was lovely to see a friendly face. She came bearing goodies in a big shopping bag, and that was exciting. There was all sorts of neat stuff - a couple of books, some tea bags, bookmarks and literature, pretty little charms, maps…it really meant a lot to see someone I “knew” that first night when I had expected
to be alone.

After that, bed seemed really alluring, and I was soon fast asleep, only to be awakened for a nice chat with my husband at three in the morning.

Yeah, we’re weird. ;-)