Pasta, pasta, pasta

Day 13 our trip found us leaving Memphis. 

As we passed the Pyramid, 

crossed the bridge,

and got a beautiful view of the Mississippi, we knew that we would be back. What we like about Memphis is that you get a true feeling of being in the South, but it isn't too far away. Someone said they like the grime of Memphis and I guess I agree.

We had over 300 miles to go to get to St. Louis, so we ate breakfast at a Waffle House and kept going on our merry way. One nice thing about our travels is we get to listen to Rosie on Sirius radio in the morning. It is a two hour show and then it's repeated so if we miss the first part we can hear it on the repeat. We only stopped once to refuel, release, and refresh and kept going as we wanted to beat the rush hour traffic. 

Our main destination in St. Louis was The Hill which is the Italian section of town. We got a brief glimpse of the Arch on the way.
You have to look close to find it.

We made it to The Hill by 3:00 so we had time to go to the shops and bakeries to look around. There were many choices to have dinner, but we decided to go back to Cunetto House of Pasta. 

We had eaten there last year and it was very good except the portions were huge! We started with a bottle of Chianti and the Insalata Cunetto.

Lindy ordered the Fettucine Carbonara which was fettucine in a white sauce with prosciutto. The prosciutto had been fried crisply so there was some really nice contrast of textures going on.

I had Spaghetti con Salsa di Melanzane which had a red sauce and fresh eggplant. Needless to say they were both delicious. I don't think these pictures accurately depict just how large the portions were. No, we did not finish them, but we polished off the wine!

Now we were off to our destination, the Ameristar Casino Hotel in St. Charles. We did have a bit of traffic getting there, but not too bad. After a bit of confusion at check-in with the bitchy hotel clerk (which Lindy deftly took care of) we got to our room. 

It was very nice with a sunken living room and view of the muddy Missouri river. The bed was not as comfy as some.

But the bathroom was spacious with double sinks, tub, big shower and separate poop room.

There were 3 flat-screen TVs including one in the bathroom.
We relazed awhile and then went down to try our luck. The casino is on the river and looks like a big boat. They had a lot of slots to play and being Monday, it wasn't too busy so you could try out different ones. I hit 3,000 on a bonus game when I was playing Invaders From Mars and didn't do too bad on Poppit. So I left up some, but Lindy had kinda lost what I was up and then some, but we still had fun.
So today wasn't quite as exciting as other days, but we are winding down. Our last night will be in Rock Island, Illinois at Jumer's! AND I'm back on schedule!