St. Louis

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I was in the St. Louis area a couple of weeks ago.  This was because one of my good friends (Eric) was getting married and I was lucky enough to be asked to be a part of the wedding.  So it was off to St. Louis on July 28.

I had never been to St. Louis prior to this trip so I had some high expectations about how fun it would be, although I realized most of the trip would be centered around the wedding, which was to be expected.

Once I landed it was off to get my rental car, which wound up being a Chevy HHR.  (Not a bad car for a rental, but it's not a car I would want to buy.)  From there it was off to my hotel in Downtown St. Louis, across the street from The Arch.  I was excited when I arrived at the hotel without getting lost.  It was about half the distance from LAX to Whittier.

Eric, who I shared a room with that first night, was not yet there since he was still out helping with wedding preparations.  Once he got there, it was up to the room to drop my stuff.  Not too long after that, it was off to Busch Stadium to take in a Cardinals game.  This is another stadium that has been crossed off my list of stadiums visited.  I've now seen MLB baseball games at Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium (pre-Petco San Diego Padres), Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox), Minute Maid Park (Houston Astros) and Busch Stadium.  It was so fun being in another stadium.  The weather really sucked as it was 97 degrees at game time, versus 105 when I first arrived in St. Louis, and the humidity was very high, which made it that much worse.  After the game and some freshening up, it was down to the hotel lobby for Eric and I to hang out and chat.

Friday was a whirlwind as I ran around with Eric and his fiance (Stacey) doing some final preps for the wedding and a family brunch.  I just remember that once we left the brunch in the early afternoon, the intensity really picked up since the rehearsal was only a couple of hours away.  Once we got back to the hotel, I met up with another friend, Micah, who came in from Texas for the wedding, who I roomed with for the final two nights.

The rehearsal went well and was fun.  The dinner was even better as went to a local Benihana-style restaurant called the Japanese Garden.  I had never been to a place like this so it was very fun and fascinating seeing the chef cook on our table and all of his tricks while cooking.  The food was really good too!

Once back at the hotel, it became social hour for those who were in town for the wedding.  Lots of drinking and hanging out, making new friends and meeting up with some who hadn't been seen in a while.  Being the introvert, I didn't do as much talking as most other people, but I did more than normal.  I was just enjoying how happy everybody was and that everybody was there to support Eric and Stacey.

Saturday was the wedding, which meant lots of busyness.  Eric, Micah and I headed down for breakfast in the hotel lobby's restaurant.  It's hard to go wrong with a breakfast buffet, and this was no exception.  After that, it was wedding prep time and, well, after that was the wedding.  It was a beautiful wedding and everything went as planned except for the wrong verse being read, but fortunately, the verse still fit.  It was off to the Paebaek (Korean traditional wedding ritual) and reception at a country club in Belleville, IL after that.  It was very fascinating watching the Paebaek, as it was very colorful and symbolic of the two families coming together to support the new couple.  Everything ended around 11:00, with the wedding ceremony having started at 2:30, but it was a lot of fun.  I was very happy to be a part of it.  I could tell Eric and Stacey were loving it all and taking as much of it in as they could, which is the way it should be.

Sunday was very much a wind-down kind of day.  It started with a family brunch back at the country club.  After about an hour there, I took Micah to the airport since he had an earlier flight than I did. After dropping him off, it was back to the city for some sightseeing.  I headed to the Arch with plans of going up in it, but when I found out my ticket would have been for two hours later, I opted for a one-hour Mississippi River cruise that started in about a half-hour.  It was cool and worth it.  After that, it was off to the airport for my evening flight back home.

Surprise! My flight out of STL was delayed by 3 hours (due to weather in Florida), which meant I could not make my connecting flight out of Las Vegas.  Fortunately, Southwest was good enough to rearrange my flights so that I would go to Houston and then LAX while getting home about the same time.  It was good to be home and see Traci and the kids again.  I missed them, but had a great trip.  Congratulations to the new couple, Eric and Stacey!!!