Happy 3rd of July!

Captain's Log - Day 12

Another day on the dock in Alton. It's odd to be spending most of our time on land again.

Nealy drove down, so she and I were able to make supply run this morning. Remember that table bracket thingy that I told you was broken? I picked up some parts at Clark Boat and Motor and I think I can fix the table now!

We also found the Elijah Lovejoy memorial that Micah was talking about. His story is pretty neat. He was a preacher from Princeton Theological Seminary (sound familiar to anyone?) who decided to run an abolitionist newspaper. When he was chased out of Missouri, he settled in Alton, where he was eventually shot and his printing presses destroyed.

The monument is pretty huge. It's on the east side of a cemetery at the top of a hill that overlooks the Mississippi River.

Once we had our bit of educational American history under our belts, we drove to St. Louis. The rest of our party met us at the Anheuser-Busch plant and we took in a tour. They've got a pretty impressive operation - staggering, really, the amount of beer brewed there. And yes, Deanne, I did pick up a shot glass for you!

Evidently, St. Louis puts on a fair under the arch during the 4th of July weekend. We went and checked it out in hopes of finding some fair food and watching the fireworks, but the place was a madhouse! Also, John Legend was performing. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing? Neither were we.

Far be it from me to bad-mouth a city in which I am a guest, but St. Louis really needs to rethink their fair food strategy. There were probably 50,000 people there (or so it seemed) and only about six food kiosks! "Come on!" Put some effort in, St. Louis.

The lines were absurd! We waited in a corn dog line for over half an hour and didn't even make it halfway to the window! We finally gave up and drove back to East Alton where we picked up a Domino's pizza with 2 minutes to spare before The Last Airbender started.

We passed the theater 3 times before we found it because it faces away from the road. There's no sign for the theater that's visible from the road! Poor form Kerasotes.

The pizza was great, but the movie was not. Kind of a cool idea, but the dialogue was atrocious - completely wooden and predictable. In fact, it was laughable most times. We did have some good laughs!