there's no place like home?

We woke up and lingered in our luxurious bed in our comfy little suite. I told Lindy I wanted to live here but we knew we had a drive ahead of us so we got going. The breakfast at the Hampton was included and it was pretty good. They had great waffles, decent biscuits and much better gravy than what we had in Memphis. 580 miles is a long way to go in a day. We left about 10 and drove, stopping every couple hours for water and potty breaks. Traffic was pretty good, but we kept getting road construction. We had gotten a gift card from Crapplebies and decided to use it in Dubuque to eat supper. We thought maybe the one in Eau Claire was just atypically bad. Well, it wasn't, but at least we didn't have to pay. We kept on chugging on. Lindy made it through Potosi without getting a speeding ticket and we kept on going north. Every damn road in Wisconsin had road construction. I guess that's where our cut in pay went. I joked about stopping at the casino in Black River Falls, but she would have none of that. We finally made it home at 9, only 11 hours after leaving St. Louis. With Lindy promising me not to start wash until tomorrow we crawled into bed and slumbered off to dreamland. We were glad to be home, but we have many great memories of our last vacation of the summer and, who knows, the last one we'll be able to afford. She refused to get on the scale the next day, but I had to face reality. I was only up 4.4 pounds. The good thing I was down 3.8 the next day. Well, there it is, the last travel blog of the year. I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for your patience in my getting this on. Ta!

Day 5: meet me in St. Louis, Lindy

Tuesday, August 23 found us bidding farewell to our beloved Memphis with the promise that we would be back. After finally deciding on where to stay, we set our gps to St. Louis. It wasn't too far away, but if we wanted to get home the next day, we have a long drive home. We thought about taking an slow route, but in the end opted for the freeway. But before we left Memphis, we had to eat one last time! We went to the Blue Plate Cafe which was another highly recommended place. It is actually inside a redone house and decorated in kinda Southern French. The biscuits were better than the day before and so was the gravy. I had an omelet which was very good. Lindy had banana pancakes with peanut butter syrup which was kinda strange. It was chunky peanut butter and syrup but the waitress brought it in a styrofoam cup and hadn't stirred it, so the peanut butter was in a glop on the top. Once I realized it had to be stirred, she said it was a little better. My review matches most of the reviews I have read for this place. The food was pretty good but the service was not great. I don't want to sound racist, but all the waitresses were white and it seemed like the kind of place that you wouldn't see too many African Americans if you get my drift. This was just my impression. It was really the first place in Memphis that I had the same sense that you get further down south of the separation that still exists.

We made our way to St. Louis to the Hampton Inn just south of the downtown area. It had just opened in the last year and was very nice. The person at the desk offered to show us the different rooms available and we found out that she was the mother of 5 children who had just recently re-entered the work force. She was so helpful. We thought she was a college girl. We decided on the King suite.

The desk was in the middle of the room. it was a welcome respite from the tiny Four Points rooms we had stayed at the last 4 nights.

We actually had two separate bathroom areas.

Eschewing all of the gourmet spots available in St. Louis we headed to Steak and Shake . It is one of Lindy's favorite chain restaurants. We then decided to head downtown to the Lumiere casino but on the way saw signs for the Rivercity casino so we followed the signs. It was a very nice looking casino, but we didn't have much luck there so decided to keep heading downtown. Once we got there, a ball game was going on but we were able to find a good parking spot in the casino lot. I still wasn't doing good, but  Lindy started playing a game called Mr Woo and started winning!

I was still losing so I tried the very last Mr Woo game in the row and then I hit!

We decided to cash in and take our money and run for once and headed back to our hotel. We had a long trip home ahead of us.