St Louis, MO

After a trip to Ohio to visit my folks, we headed for St Louis, MO (one of our many former stomping grounds) to see our longtime friend, Michael. We filled our time with good conversation and food (including a "Cardinal Sin" sundae at Ted Drewes, which is worth a two thousand mile drive in itself, see picture). Colin and I had to swing through the St Louis zoo for old time's sake and spent quite a long time at the new stingray exhibit. It was a great experience, since you hold out a clean hand, flat in the water, and the stingrays rise up as they swim past to be petted (and fed, since they like to eat as much as I do). We also walked along the muddy Mississippi and under the Arch, which is a truly amazing feat of engineering. All in all a good few days.

Boog's Legacy

On Saturday, I taught our nieces and nephews to make the BEST ugly face ever. Left to right: Lillian, Colin, me, Judith, and John (Rachel was MUCH too dignified to participate) Just remember: eyelid, nose, eyelid with one hand, two fingers in the lower lip with the other. This is my legacy....

Bojangles

Tuesday we went up to Raleigh to see some friends and do some more
shopping for our trip. But of course we had to stop at Bojangles for
the best fried chicken dinner around! Quarter white, dirty rice,
biscuit and tea. Yum!

The Atlantic

We finally made it to NC. 2835 miles in a Scion xB, with an unhappy cat, in three and a half days, but we made it. Our first stop was Andy's Cheesesteaks for (obviously) a cheesesteak. Our second stop was to drop off the cat and our stuff at the folk's house and then we went right to the beach! The water was near 80 degrees, quite a change from the Oregon coast. We also had a good time with the cousins, nieces, and other family. John made his famous "dog poop" cupcakes for the cookout after the Sneads Ferry Shrimp Festival on Saturday. It was nice to see everyone before we leave and eat some delicious food. The fireworks at the Shrimp Festival were great, the best we have seen in years.