Meet Me in Saint Louieee Louieee

The night before my trip to Saint Louis I couldn't sleep at all. Seriously, I may have gotten an hour or two in the whole night! I was back and forth between my bed and the computer and the futon. Finally I got a solid block of sleep near daylight. My alarms were set for 6:30am and 6:45am, but I didn't hear either one of them. My eyes opened at 7:28am! Just two minutes before my shuttle was supposed to arrive!

Thankfully, I had set out my clothes the night before and piled my stuff together. I ran around my little house throwing on clothes and grabbing the trash to take out. Just as I was about to leave I heard a knock on my window. It was my neighbor, in her robe, informing me that the shuttle guy had knocked on her door. Crap. (I learned today that she was already awake, which makes me feel a bit better.)

Anyway... I made my shuttle and got the airport with plenty of time to spare. I bought a book, Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother, to read on the plane. My flights seemed pretty quick and uneventful. I connected in Kansas City and arrived a few minutes early in Saint Louis.

Carrie picked me up. It was a little weird at first. But look how happy I was to see her and to be back in Saint Louis!



Carrie took me to ArtMart to pick up some Kozo paper for my SNAP!!! print and then we had a quick bite at Saint Louis Bread Company in the loop. My haircut was at 4pm, we got there early and I had an enjoyable haircut and visit with my favorite stylist, Callie. We poked our head in some stores in the Loop and then made our way back home. There was a Balloon Race in Forest Park this weekend and all sorts of crazies were pulled off the highway watching it. I thought it was funny that there were balloons in Saint Louis because that is the big event in Albuquerque. Of course, in Saint Louis there are only about 70 balloons in the race. At the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta there will be around 700 balloons! So crazy.

Here is a picture taken from the car of the balloons over Forest Park:



By the time we got done with my haircut and got home, I was pretty wiped out. We rested a bit and then walked down to Bahn Mi So 1 for a late dinner of Palestrina's Delight and the Best-Spring-Rolls-In-Saint-Louis.

I slept incredibly well that night, and in the morning we went to La Dolce Via for brunch. I had biscuits and gravy which was delicious until I slowed down enough to realize it was made with lamb sausage. I'm not trying to be down on lamb sausage or anything... but when you're not expecting it, it can leave quite a bad taste in the mouth. Here I am trying to do the Katie Spencer photo-face, but really just looking silly:



(P.S. Check out my awesome Cardinals shirt that Carrie got me. So stylish and comfy.)

Just as we were wrapping up our brunch, a gaggle of early-twenty-somethings walked in. I thought I recognized a guy in the group and then realized that it was Alexandra's boyfriend Hayden! Sure enough, Alex strolled through the door a second later. It still amuses me that we ran in to each other there. Of all the places in Saint Louis they could have gone. Crazy Crazy.

Back at the house I worked on printing out the color parts of my SNAP!!! print onto the Kozo paper I'd prepared. My parents drove up from Rolla and arrived at the house around 2pm. We rushed down to Laclede's Landing so that we could beat the football game crowd to the Old Spaghetti Factory (my mom's favorite). Here's a view from the riverfront:



We hung out with my parents for quite a while and ended up back down in the loop for Ben and Jerry's. By the time they left, it was around 7pm! Where does the day go? I worked more on my SNAP!!! prints and then Alexandra called to invite us out for dessert and drinks at Bailey's Chocolate Bar. We were pretty desserted-out from the ice cream so we just stuck with a drink and enjoyed conversation with Alex and her friends.

I still had about 15 more pages to print out when I got home and I was a little disgruntled that I had to spend my last waking hours at home working on a print. There were so many people that I didn't get to see while I was home and I wish I could have found a way to squeeze more in.

5:30am came very early in the morning. We drove out to pick up Alex and Hayden from their hotel and took them to the airport with us. Hayden's flight to NYC wasn't until later in the day and he was flying on a different airline so we parted ways at the security checkpoint. So many goodbyes. So much sadness.



Alex slept pretty much the whole way back... Look at her! Just like a little angel with her head smashed into that tray table:



Celina picked us up at the airport and we dropped off our things and headed straight into the studio. Today we discussed our next project and Alex and I finished printing her last two editions. Tomorrow morning we have class with Marge and then it's on to our first Collaboration!