Salad Is Slaughter

We rented a Kia POS for this trip. I had assumed that windshield wipers were a fairly well understood technology. Apparently not for Kia, because ours would freeze at inopportune times, and when we turned them off they stopped in weird positions. I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that KIA is the acronym for “Killed In Action.”

I saw one of those fish emblems on a car in the hotel parking lot, but instead of the words “Jesus” or something similar in the middle, it said “Gefilte.” I loved it.

A bunch of us played the card game Tripoli, and every time my brother from Las Vegas did anything with the chips, he’d put his hands over the table and show both sides of them. I’ve also seen him do the same thing in the grocery store when handling money. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The exit ramps in St. Louis seem to have much sharper curves than in California, which doesn’t make sense to me. St. Louis has ice and snow, and the last thing you’d want is a sharp turn on a slippery road.

Wednesday was the travel day. Thursday was the touristy day. Janet and I began by stopping by Bob Evans for breakfast. I wish they had one around here because Bob Evans has some of the best biscuits and sausage gravy around. Note: while looking for the Bob Evans restaurant web site, I noticed that they also own Mimi’s Café. Unfortunately, Mimi’s Café doesn’t have the same breakfast menu.

After breakfast we picked up my parents and headed down to the Missouri Botanical Garden (otherwise known as Shaw’s Garden) to see the “Glass in the Garden: Chihuly at the Missouri Botanical Garden” exhibit. There was a lot of interesting and beautiful blown glass pieces scattered among the plants. It does seem that Dale Chihuly is a disciple of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, as several of the pieces seemed to pay tribute to him. Click here, here and here to see examples. We also went through the holiday display they had set up; essentially a lot of model trains and associated buildings and people. They did a good job with it.

Next we headed to Granite City Illinois to watch my nephew play pee wee hockey. What happens when you mix somewhat warm weather, the right barometric pressure, and a semi-outdoor ice rink? Fog. The water vapor accumulated on the glass so we had to stand on the bleachers to see the game, and the fog obscured the far end of the ice. Still, it was fun to watch the kids play, and my nephew was thrilled that his aunt and uncle from California came all that way to see him play.

After the game we drove back to Missouri to “The Hill” for some Italian food at Gian Tony’s. The appetizers were just as good as I remembered. The toasted ravioli was perfect, the fried artichokes were very good (but completely different from what you get in Castroville) and the mussels were delicious. For the main course I ordered cannelloni like I did on my last visit, but it wasn’t as good as I remembered. The sauce seemed to be missing something, and there was too much of it, so it was hard to find the actual cannelloni.

Friday was shopping day - for the parent’s xmas gift and dinner. We also had lunch at Bandana’s Bar-B-Q. I really liked that place. They put a dry rub on their meat and smoke it. They put four bottles of sauce on the table to choose from. I wasn’t too impressed with the original sauce, but the hot, the sweet and smokey, and the spicy sauces were all excellent. The fried corn was good, too.

Saturday was the reason for the trip: the parents’ two months before their 50th anniversary party. The food was good, all of their children, children’s spouses, and their grandchildren showed up, as well as several of their friends who I haven’t seen since the wedding last year. One of my former neighbors still talks about the wedding on the paddle wheel boat eighteen months later.

After the dining we all headed back to the parents house where my father dressed as Santa and handed out presents. Somehow Janet and I managed to get our gifts packed and back to San Jose without breaking anything.

Sunday morning (xmas eve) we hit the airport early. We had exit row seats reserved and we wanted to be sure we had them since the flight was sure to be packed. We did the e-ticket check in and the nice computer asked us if we wanted to upgrade to first class. We weighed spending a couple of bucks for larger seats and more leg room against being crammed in to coach for three and a half hours, and comfort won out.

We walked through security and they pulled us both aside for special security screening. I assume it was because we upgraded to first class at the last minute. Sure, they went through all of our stuff, but on the plus side we had a place to sit down while we put on our shoes. As we walked away from security, I had to say to Janet, “Derka derka jihad, derk derka Mohamed Ali, derka.” I don’t think the security people heard me, or Janet snicker.

The flight back was uneventful and on time, and the food was still not very good.

The line to get through security began in the Terminal A parking garage, and the first one and a half rope lines were already filled with travelers wondering if arriving two hours early was early enough to make their flights. To make matters worse, if you had bags to check (which everyone does nowadays since you can’t bring more than a thimbleful of liquids in to the cabin) you have to leave the parking garage, cross the bridge in to the terminal, and get in a different line to check your bags and get a boarding pass.

This trip was to be a two leg flight; take a commuter jet to San Diego, then fly to St. Louis from there. Unfortunately, since TWA went belly up, there is no longer a direct flight between San Jose and St. Louis, and driving up to San Francisco during the morning commute was out of the question. Fortunately, the line through security moved pretty well and we had plenty of time to spare for a quick Cinnabon and some Starbucks. Before we reached the gate, Janet bought a bottle of water for the trip, stuck it in her carry on, and forgot about it.

We arrived at the San Diego commuter terminal and made our way to the bus stop. In San Diego you have to take the “Red Bus” to the terminal you need. Note to travelers: in San Diego, the Red Bus isn’t always red. Sometimes it’s white, and has a sign on it that says it’s a red bus. If you’re literal minded you need to set that aside sometimes in order to make your flight.

We arrived at the terminal (I think it was Terminal 1 for American Airlines) and saw that our flight to St. Louis was delayed by about two hours. Decision time: should we hop in a cab and head over to Casa Guadalajara for lunch? We’ve only been there once but the food was great and we really wanted to go back. It was a tough choice but in the end we decided to stay at the airport. We didn’t know at the time what was causing the delay, if they would reschedule another aircraft for our flight, or…

The day we had decided to cash in 60000 miles and upgrade to first class on the San Diego to St. Louis leg. We went through security again (they had a first class line that was pretty short) when security pulled Janet over, wanting to know what’s with the bottle of water. Yep, the still sealed bottle of water she bought in the San Jose airport and stuck in her bag and forgot about. Since we left the commuter terminal and had to go through security again, the bottle of water that we could legally take on the plane from San Jose was now verboten. Janet had the option of drinking the entire bottle before reentering security, but she decided to just toss it.

We could have gone to Casa Guadalajara for lunch and returned with time to spare. Our plane was coming in from Dallas, and storms delayed all flights from Dallas that day by about two hours. We found a place at the bar and drank overpriced bloody marys and ate passable fish and chips. It was a poor substitute for hand-made tortillas, vibrant sauces, and exceptional drinks.

The plane from Dallas finally arrived and we began the three hour trip to Missouri. I’m glad we spent the 60000 miles on the upgrade because the plane was packed. The downside is that airplane food in first class has really gone downhill. We had a choice of pizza or pasta. We both picked pasta and it was decidedly substandard. To make matters worse, the wine they served was barely drinkable. Yeah it was free in first class, but nasty free wine is still nasty. I should have gone with the Dr. Pepper.

We arrived to a rainy St. Louis and waited for our bags. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. It didn’t help that the baggage carousels didn’t have flight numbers on them, and that our flight from San Diego wasn’t even listed on the arriving flight board. Our bags finally showed up, rain dripping from them. I assume that the baggage guys took them off the plane and let them sit out in the rain.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful; rented a car, checked in to a hotel, and then met the parents and a couple of brothers for a late dinner.

I would like to offer my deepest, most sincere apology for not pointing out that yesterday, December 25, was the birthday of one of the greatest people to ever live.

Happy belated birthday to Sir Isaac Newton, whose contributions to physics and mathematics changed our world for the better.

We finally got around to buying our xmas cards yesterday, and I’m going to try to mail them out on Monday morning. You have no idea how close I came to buying ultra religous nativity xmas cards just so I could imagine the shock on everyone’s face when they opened them up.

I finally got my xmas presents to Janet wrapped this evening while watching the Avalanche/Blackhawks game. Nala and Sammi spent way too much, and they don’t even have jobs.

Finally, I leave this thought for you during his holiday season: