The Best Laid Plans...

Books By Patti Liszkay
​Available On Amazon

​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​Available on Amazon.

​THE BEST LAID PLANS...

...Continued from previous post:
    After the wedding we walked from the reception at the Hotel St. Louis several blocks back to our Airbnb, still happily clueless of the fact that one should not walk through downtown St. Louis late on a Saturday night dressed in semi-formal attire. (See post form 9/6/2022, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/omg-now-we-know-why-the-streets-of-st-louis-were-empty).​   

     But once again our good luck held, and we succeeded in traversing the streets of the most dangerous city in America unscathed.
     Tom's and my plan for the rest of our trip was to spend one more day, Sunday, in St. Louis and then to leave the following day, Monday, to drive to Chicago to spend a few days with Claire and Miguel, who would be flying home from St. Louis on Sunday afternoon.
      Things went about 50% as planned.
​       It was the general consensus of our group that, as we were in St. Louis, we should snag some of the barbecue that this city is famous for. Claire, the vegetarian among us, was nonetheless also agreeable to the idea.
​        So we met up a little before 11:00 am on Sunday morning and then walked about a half a mile through downtown, 

...until we reached sort-of busy Washington Street,

...and our bbq destination, the Sugarfire Smoke House.

      The ambiance was fun, the service  good, the servers so friendly, and the food, served on butcher paper for a plate,

...was soooo delicious.  Claire and I had portabella mushroom "barbecue" sandwiches, which were out of this world.

      After lunch we drove Claire and Miguel to the airport where they caught their flight back to Chicago. That evening Romaine, Stanley, Tom and I met up with my brother Jim and my sister-in-law Theresa for dinner at Sauce on the Side, where we'd had dinner our first night in St. Louis (see post from 9/1/2022, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/meeting-in-st-louis​).

     Afterwards we all walked back to our respective quarters through the dark, empty, pretty, purportedly dangerous streets of downtown St. Louis,

...and, happily, once again lived to tell about it.
    The following morning, all packed up and ready to leave, Tom and I were planning on setting out bright and early for one more delicious breakfast with Stanley and Romaine at The Docket, the eatery across the street from the St. Louis circuit courthouse (see post from 9/7/2022, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/seeing-the-sights-in-the-most-dangerous-city-in-america-part-1​),

...before setting out on our drive to Chicago.
​         However by the dawn's early light it was pretty clear to us that our plans were about to take a U-turn. Tom awoke with a very swollen painful knee. Walking several blocks to breakfast was out. However by good luck it was a few steps away from our Airbnb to a wonderful supermarket called  Schnuck's,

 ...that offered a take-out breakfast buffet where I was able to snag us a nice assortment of breakfast foods.

     By even better luck, across the street from Schnuck's was a twenty-four hour urgent care called 24/7 Healthcare,

...to which Tom was able to limp.
        The diagnosis was bursitis and the treatment was ice, Aleve, 

...and no walking all around Chicago.
​        And so Tom and I said good-bye to Romaine and Stanley (who were staying another day) and to the empty streets of St. Louis, 

...crossed over the beautiful Veterans' Memorial Bridge,

...and headed back to Columbus, Ohio, where Tom rested his knee and soon recovered.
       As for me, I bought a last-minute plane ticket and the following day I flew by myself to Chicago.