03/09/09

One nice thing about living at the St. Louis RV Park is that we are close to so many things.  Friday we went to the Home and Garden show at the America’s Center.  A couple who sell a product at shows like that is staying at the RV Park while the show is going on, and they gave us free tickets.  The show was huge – about twice the size of the RV show!  They had everything there.  One section was for landscaping, and all of the presenters had created an example of their work.  Most of them were about 15 feet across; some were larger.  They created small backyard settings, included fencing, mulching, flowers, waterfalls – everything!

For Randy’s birthday, he took the day off.  We had breakfast at the Black Bear Café.  They are well-known for their bakery goods and they have a weekend buffet so we thought we would try it.  They had pancakes (small and thin, almost like crepes), eggs, fried potatoes, red pepper gravy, fresh fruit, and a few other things.  It was OK, but we probably won’t go back.  

As Randy’s birthday present I got him some attachments for the Wii.  The Wii is pretty cool, because we can use it inside the RV.

We also put in a new faucet in the bathroom sink on Saturday.  The old one was short, ugly, and it leaked.  The new one is taller, very pretty…and it leaks.  Just a bit.  The RV is different from a home, so the things that Lowe’s has don’t always work exactly right.  Randy’s going to work with it and I’ll bet he can fix it.

For dinner we went out with friends.  Aaron and Dezina came over with their son Jordon and his girlfriend. A young man how works with Aaron and Randy, named Jarod, also came. We went to Shaffley’s because they had an Oyster festival that weekend. They brought in something like 25,000 fresh oysters, still in the shell. The waiting time for a seat in the regular restaurant was about an hour, but during that time we went upstairs for oysters. It was pretty casual – we stood in line for about 10-15 minutes, paid cash at the door for what we wanted, then helped ourselves at a long table. On one side of the table were several guys wearing heavy gloves, shucking oysters out of the shell as fast as they could and putting them on trays of crushed ice. On the other side of the table were folks like us, loading our plates with the fresh oysters. There was another table with condiments. The common way to eat raw oysters around here is on a cracker, with a spoonful of cocktail sauce, half a spoonful of horseradish sauce and a few drops of Tabasco sauce. Our group of 7 ordered a few dozen raw oysters and a dozen cooked oysters. The cooked ones are breaded and deep-fried. Then we had to find a place to eat. It was so packed there was no chance of finding chairs, but we did find a long window seat, so we put the food out on it and stood around, scarfing oysters. 

I have eaten raw oysters before and they are OK, but I ate the cooked oysters and left the raw ones to the guys who really love them.  Randy said they were really, really good oysters – must have been because they were so fresh. Just as we were finishing the oysters, our table was ready. We were pretty full by then, so Randy and I just split a burger. But Shaffley’s has some good food – Jordon had a lamb sandwich that was good, and Aaron had a beef pie that was great. Dezina had a huge salad and had to take most of it home. Also, Shaffley’s is a local brewer that is quite famous for their beers, so everyone sampled different beers. I still don’t care for beer so I stuck to Diet Coke. The irony is that I was the only person who spilled her drink – I dropped the whole glass!  Randy joked that I just can’t hold my Diet Coke and he was going to have to cut me off! Randy usually likes the Oatmeal Stout, but he tried a coffee beer – I had a sip, and it was pretty good. After dinner we all went back to the RV and had ice cream cake. Oberwise is a local company with really great ice cream, so I went there and got a German Chocolate ice cream cake. We sat around talking until after 10. 

Unfortunately, thanks to Daylight savings, it was really midnight when we got to bed, instead of 11. And the next morning Randy had to get up early. Once a month he and Judy Glass fix breakfast at the church, with the contributions going towards the church’s Family Benefit Fund.  The breakfast starts at 8:30 and he has to fix everything before then, so I really don’t know how early he got up that day.   The breakfast this month was French toast, banana-nut oatmeal and apple-cinnamon oatmeal. Seriously, Randy makes the best oatmeal.

Sunday was very windy here. When I got home from church, I found that the wind had torn off one of our awnings. When the living room section of the RV slides out to make more room, there is an awing that automatically slides out over it. The purpose is to keep leaves and stuff from falling onto the top of the slide so when it pulls back in, there isn’t anything on top that can hang-up and cause damage. But the awning is totally ruined so we’ll have to see about getting that fixed.

And today I’m back at work. I really, really like working 4 10-hour days and having 3 days off every weekend.