Jammie visits again
Friday, September 16th, 2005: After a little work in the morning, I drove to the Kansas City airport to pick up Jammie, a mere 4.5 hour drive. I arrived in the airport a few hours early so I sat around the bar a lot and explored a lot of the airport. Kansas City is the first airport I’ve seen since the 9/11 attacks where you can actually meet whoever you’re picking up at the gate they come out of. They separate the passengers and nonpassengers by glass so that we can’t pass along bombs to each other or anything. It’s a very nice setup and it’ll be nice when all the other airports start doing it. I hung around on some benches outside her gate for over an hour, mostly chatting with Roxy on Yahoo.
Jammie’s flight was delayed by 1.5 hours and she finally arrived at 10:15pm. After another 4.5 of driving in the intense fog (I’ve never driven in fog so thick. It was worse than some of the snowstorms I’ve been through.) we made it to Alton
Saturday, September 17th, 2005: Earlier in the week Jammie searched for fun things to do in St. Louis and came up with the annual hot air balloon race in Forest Park. So after sleeping in all morning we made it to the balloon race in the afternoon. I parked at Union Station and we took the Metrolink to the park and had to walk about a mile through the park before we found it. Did a lot of walking around and picture taking. Then called up Nathan, some kid I’ve known online for a couple of years, who was supposed to be at the event. Met up with him, walked all over the place, took more pictures and left the park by way of treacherous jungles. Ended up on a closed off highway and walked down it for awhile until we reached civilization.
We went to a pizza place and after a little smooth talking by Nate, we sat down to 3 free slices and drinks. Jammie’s theory is that Nate is either the mayor’s son or connected to the mafia because he knows everyone and gets us everything for free. We repaid the pizza parlor’s generousity by screwing with their TVs with my universal remote program.
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| Sure to be used for blackmail at some point in my life, here is me wearing cute pink bunny ears | Me and Jammie wearing cute pink bunny ears | Hot air balloons | Jammie & Nate and some poor, innocent penguin being exploited in the name of PLA | Jammie & Nate playing on some road construction equipment |
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| Shot of the crowd | Energizer bunny getting ready to poop on Jammie’s head | More hot air balloons | And even more balloons | Nate & I, overlooking the abandoned street we’re about to walk on |
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| We walked about 1/4 mile down an abandoned highway to get to the pizza place | Nate behind the counter, getting our sodas | Nate chugging some hot peppers | Nate regretting his decision | A perfect advertisement for the green PLA stickers |
After that we took the metrolink back to Union Station, picked up my car, drag raced an unwilling lady and ended up at the City Museum. I repeat – I convinced some underaged teenage kid that I met on the internet to get into my car. We gave him candy. Nate got us into the museum for free, took us onto the roof and gave us a big tour of the roof. One part of the City Museum that I’d never seen.
After a few hours at the City Museum, we walked across town onto the Eads Bridge and across it. By this time it was getting late and Jammie & I were exhausted so we parted ways and left Nate at the Metrolink station. Took a cab back to the City Museum, looked around the gift shop for awhile and then drove home. Nate, you rule. And it was fun to finally meet you.
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| From the roof of the City Museum | This thing was rather scary to walk on, it spiraled around a dome on the roof and there wasn’t anything to hold on to | WHEEEE! | Jammie walking along a bridge on the roof, 11 stories up | |
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| Nate paid off the train engineer to let us sit in the kiddie train | In an airplane | Trying to pet the fish | Sunset from the roof | Jammie falling into a scary unknown cavern |
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| One of the many spiders along the Eads Bridge walk | Nate comtemplating death | Good shot of the arch from the Eads Bridge |
Sunday, September 18th, 2005: Drove to Edwardsville and saw The 40-year-old Virgin. (A movie, not a person.) Stopped at a few Targets on the way home, looking for some card-reading hardware and then ended up back home. Started up a campfire and roasted marshmellows and hotdogs. And then we roasted my shoes. At some point in Portland a few weeks ago, my 4-year-old shoes finally reached the point of not being wearable anymore. Jammie was always making fun of them for being so ratty (not to mention users on Cal’s forums making fun of my shoes) so we decided to burn them in the fire.
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| Getting a fire started | City girl thinking she knows how to roast marshmellows | My shoes | My shoes in the fire | My shoes burning |
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| Neighbor kids watching my shoes burn | Me endorsing Pibb Xtra | Me | Her | Us |
After extinguishing the fire, we went on a long walk. Stopped at Sonic for some food, then walked for a few more hours, eventually ending up fairly soaked from the rain.
Monday, September 19th, 2005: Drove back to Kansas City today and left Jammie at the airport. Her plane is gone and I’m hanging out at the airport now, not really ready to get back on the road yet. Had a good drive up here. Listened to my old 90’s mp3 CD for the entire drive and then ate at a bar-b-que place which a coworker of Jammie’s recommended. Got caught in a pretty heavy storm as we found the bar-b-que place but it cleared up quickly.