From Beaches to Peaches!: 2016 May St. Louis wedding trip

Showing posts with label 2016 May St. Louis wedding trip. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2016

5-31-2016 Missouri Botanical Gardens with Karen:

About the time we left St. Louis, I discovered a volleyball friend of mine was really into photography. So the last couple times I was there we met up at the Gardens to visit, have lunch, and play photographers. She actually just completed an internship at MOBOT and even had pictures hanging in the cafe as well as a bill board off Highway 64. I always find it interesting to see someone else's views of the same thing I'm seeing. Perspectives are always so different! It doesn't seem to matter how many times I've been to MOBOT, there's always something interesting to take pictures of there!
chihuly hanging by the entrance

more Chihuly in the garden

Irises still blooming in May

a koi pond

this tree reminded me of a man's face.

heading into the Japanese Garden

walking down to the lilies

water gems resting on the lily pads.

more koi

over by the zig-zag bridge

The irises here were over 6' tall! A grounds keeper said he'd never seen them this tall!

Karen getting a lower perspective.

Love being there when the irises are blooming!

another part of the garden

love the shadows

lots of lilies

and columbines

and ?????

lots of textured leaves, too.

one of the many areas to just sit and enjoy the garden.

more texture.

more Chihuly

final view of the hanging Chihuly as we were leaving.

5-29-2016 Birthday dinner at Cunetto's and driving around town:

Time is running out on this trip. We figured we'd stay until my renewed passport came in the mail, but it was here waiting for me when we got here --- only about a week after I sent in for the renewal!!! So we went to Dr.s and saw a few friends. Even had 6 gallons of freon put in the air conditioner. Only a couple things left to do---like have a real birthday dinner since we were on the road for 9 hours of my real birthday! Always love going to Cunetto's. St. Louis has an area known as The Hill where a bunch of Italians settled and half of them opened up restaurants "on the Hill". They're all great, but I love the Bistecca Soto and the salad at Cunetto's the best!

Then we rode around some places in St. Louis. Here's Tower Grove Park.

baby wood ducks at Tower Grove Park.

I was surprised to see some irises still blooming.

daddy wood duck

Reynard the Fox--- the folklore fox of long ago whose stories typically involve satire where the usual butts are the aristocracy and the clergy, making Reynard a peasant-hero character. He's perched here on the corner of one of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery buildings.

another Anheuser building.

On to Forest Park. This was by the Muny.

Even saw a Great White Egret enjoying Forest Park!

5-28-2016 David and Jane up to visit us!

Yep, only a day later, but they came on up to visit with us. We took the opportunity to have dinner at Ken's brother's restaurant, Stef's in O'Fallon. Never a disappointment! Even got to have a nice visit with Ken's brother.

My brother owned a pizza parlor in Oregon so loves to try pizza from other places.

5-27-2016 off to Southern Illinois to visit with my brother and sister-in-law:

Whenever we're in town, and they are too, we try to get together with them at least once. Their place is about 1 1/2 hours from ours, so we make a whole day of it.
They have 11 acres with a nice size pond.

a Luna moth at their place---Id never seen one before.

This is about the only time Ken will go fishing anymore. It's really easy access and they get a fish on almost every cast. Then they release them back to be caught again.

Of course the weather wasn't too cooperative this time.

After about 15 minutes and about 20 fish, the rains started and they'd had enough. So much for the old days when they would hike miles up and down into the woods of Oregon to fish the streams and lakes there.

5-26-2016 Old Town Doughnuts!

I didn't appreciate our local doughnut place until we moved to South Florida and I couldn't find good doughnuts anymore. So after going to all the Dr. appointments and getting our prescriptions refilled, I picked us up some great doughnuts. Toughest decision was which one to eat first!?

Thursday, June 23, 2016

5-23-16 Cardinal game:

Thanks to Bill, we were able to go to a Cardinal game while we were in St. Louis, too. A sales rep for the newspaper had invited Bill and Lena, but they ended up having a Grandchild's kindergarten graduation to go to. So we went in their place. Sat with the sales rep and his wife. He was a very interesting young man from England. Turned out the guy in front of us was on vacation from England, too. So there were 3 of us there from England. As the rep said, "We're like rats! We're everywhere!" It was a great game with great company and great results---we actually won with a walk off homer.

Temperature wise it was a beautiful evening, too.

and it's a winner!

5-22-16 Johnson Shut Ins :

When I saw how close we were to Johnson Shut-Ins on our way to the wedding, I was excited about getting a chance to see them again. It had been a long time since we were there. There was even a huge dam breech since we were there, so I wasn't sure if it would be like I remembered. Ameren did a really nice job of cleaning up the area from the breech and even built lots of walking trails and a really nice museum about the area. So we headed there as soon as we left the resort we stayed in for the wedding.
I enjoyed all the wild flowers along along our 1/4 mile or so walk to the Shut-ins from the parking lot,

One of our first views of the river. I don't remember walking so far into the area years ago---maybe that's just because I was younger and had more energy then.