Thursday, August 27, 2020

A Leisurely Dupo Stroll

Mixed in with our voracious consumption of Missouri state parks, we have been taking a lot of strolls in various small towns surrounding St. Louis.




This time we took a stroll around Dupo, Illinois. Lydia's grandma used to live here and Lydia spent a lot of her childhood at her house.








I have all of my Italian citizenship application documents in order and am now just waiting for my appointment at the consulate in Chicago. In the meantime, I've been investigating any possible citizenship opportunities in countries that some of my other ancestors hail from. I spoke a bit with Sharon Valasek, the Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic over in Kansas City. She was super helpful, but some of the documentation I would need to pull this off has been more difficult to come by on my Czech side.






Sunday, August 23, 2020

Baseball Goes On

The Busch Stadium and Ballpark Village area has been a ghost town as while there are games being played, no fans are allowed to attend.




This poor guy was watching through the fence. He got his snacks at a reasonable price, at least.



The stands were full of cardboard cut outs.







I bought a Nintendo Switch as something to entertain myself until the end of the world. I haven't played an Animal Crossing title in some time, so I was excited to see what was new.



Tuesday, August 18, 2020

O'Fallon Pumpkin Beer Virtual Tasting

It's usually pretty sad to watch organizations try to get you to sign up for virtual versions of covid canceled in-person events. Especially like virtual fundraiser galas. Bad news guys, I was mostly going for the booze. I'm not going to dress up and then sit in front of my computer while I write you a check, sorry. But when I heard that Randall's was doing a virtual beer testing, I thought this might just be crazy enough to work.














The tasting featured several pumpkin beers from O'Fallon, and then we logged onto a webex where an O'Fallon employee was waxing poetic about all of the subtle notes I should be detecting.










Our tasting room this evening was Zoe's back... side yard?




As the sun set the sky really put on a show for us.






Sunday, August 16, 2020

State Park Mushroom Hunting

I thought that I had found my dream job. If you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life.


I passed the first round of grueling interviews.


Today we hit Robertsville State Park. The park, founded in 1979, borders the Meramec River and Calvey Creek. 




There was a fungus smorgasbord on display.  








Termites go marching.








Parkour!


Stopped by Seago's and had a cigar. Is there a product with better labels than cigars?


My new career was sadly not to be. Mailing my bodily secretions is one thing, but paying to mail them crosses the line.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

A Late Summer Night’s Stroll

We try to attend the Shakespeare in the Park performance in Forest Park every year (last year), so when covid ruined that I was excited when those geniuses came up with a socially distanced outdoor walking tour version instead.


"Shakespeare in the Park like never before. An 80-minute jaunt full of poetry, music and art. Loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “A Late Summer Night’s Stroll” puts you at the center of the story: four lovers’ escape to an enchanted wood and the magical night of transformation that follows. A socially-distant self-guided tour of iconic spots and hidden gems, featuring custom installations, open-air performances and charming vignettes."








Doug and Linda were in our gang.








I had assumed beforehand that it was just going to be the same actors but spread out in small groups. This was fun because I didn't even know what type of art to expect: sometimes it was music, sometimes dance, acting, but always fun and usually somehow related to the story. There were times when I definitely had to refer to the program to understand what the heck was going on but it was entertaining nonetheless.








The Saint Louis Art Museum was looking fine af.




Apotheosis hypnosis