July 20th, 2006
What an experience we had in St Louis! We knew that there had been a strong storm there the night before, but we had no idea of the severity till after we’d been there awhile. It only took about two hours to get there, and we went straight downtown to get to the famous Arch. We kept seeing debris in the streets, the streetlights were all out and bent at odd angles, and there were massive branches broken. We began to realize that it had to have been the storm the night before. The eerie feeling was compounded by the fact that St. Louis is clearly in the midst of major urban renewal. Block after city block is full of abandoned buildings in terrible condition. Many of them reminded us of the devastation in New Orleans, where the buildings looked like they had had their insides sucked right out.
The difference here was that the roofs weren’t gone, and there were clear signs of renewal in many buildings. The shops that are going in are very upscale, and my guess would be that that area is going to make some real estate investors a serious fortune, if they get in soon. So far, it looks like the two ground floors are going to be restaurants and shops, and the remaining floors are going to be livings spaces, like the European model. It looks like it will be gorgeous when it’s done. It’s an area we are going to come back and take a look at. We loved the architecture and the whole look of the place, after getting beyond the decayed look.
After seeing the downtown area, and getting lost out in the Illinois side of St Louis (where power was out in a huge area due to the storm), we headed out to REI (a sports store that carries our favorite sunscreen) and Whole Foods. We had a fabulous afternoon again, enjoying something akin to our normal life – great conversation with knowledgeable people about things we are really interested in – and a wonderful choice of great resources. We replenished our sunscreen and got some safety wear for our trek through the Ozarks, where we had heard there is a great to need to be visible.
One very funny story relates to Whole Foods – Chelsea and I were looking at trail mix, and saw some interesting possibilities, but hated to make a purchase and find out on the road that we really didn’t like it. Since there signs all over asking people not to “graze” we went and asked a store employee if we could sample some of the mixes. It was one of the smartest and luckiest events to happen to us in a while. We ended up getting literally handfuls of samples of different types of trail mix, energy bars that we could buy in bulk, and the guy even went and called Wild Oats on his own cell phone for us to see if they carried Greens Bars! We had needed to eat before we came in, but we got so much in free samples that our appetite was actually satisfied for awhile! It seemed like yet another example of how friendly people are here. And I think that people are so wonderful because they really appreciate and respect what an adventurous thing we are doing.
We had the same experience at REI, where the manager took us personally around and answered all our questions carefully and thoughtfully. We are pretty clear about what we need, and we can’t afford to get out on the road only to find out that the sunscreen we bought allows us to burn. Talk about field-testing our products! We are giving everything an intensive field-testing.
We finally settled on our favorite sunscreen, and then opted for two Columbia shirts in bright peach, long sleeve, with an SPF of 30. I have been wearing sleeveless jerseys, but have been concerned about so much sun exposure on my arms, not to mention the grime of the sunscreen (although neither of us has gotten a sunburn yet!). We also wanted maximum visibility for the Ozarks, so we also got a mesh vest in safety orange with bright reflective tape on it, like road workers wear.