After our stay at the Super 8 in Kansas, Sam and I were ready to make our way to Mary Baker’s house right outside of St. Luis. Mary was another one of our suite mates at Emerson. She is a Writing Literature and Publishing major who is a lover of Game of Thrones and musicals. After our trek through more boring landscapes (cows, cornfields, anti-abortion billboards) it was great to finally pull into the driveway of a friend.
Mary and her little sister, Betsy, greeted us excitedly and it was great to plop our bags down in their guest room. We all got to catch up and Mary gave us a tour of her house, including her Dad’s insane Nips bottle collection that lined the walls of an entire room. Her house was beautiful and a safe haven for Sam and I, who hadn’t stayed with friends or family since LA.
We also hadn’t showered since Salt Lake City, which was pretty disgusting. So, of course, Sam and I were grateful to finally shower and throw our laundry in the wash before we explored the outskirts of St. Luis.
Mary and her sassy little sister brought us to a park in Chesterfield where we enjoyed some famous St. Luis pizza, Imo’s. It’s very flat and cut in squares rather than triangles. We also had some provel (fake cheese bites) and fried ravioli. It all sounds weird, but we enjoyed it! The weather was beautiful and the four of us enjoyed the park.
We also saw a statue the Bakers referred to as “the zombie” which was a huge giant coming out of the ground, like a zombie breaking through its grave. It was definitely a fun place for photos.
After that, we made our way to Ted Drewe’s for frozen custard. I had never seen a place so packed in all my life. Mary and Betsy explained that this famous little place is always crowded, but the lines always move fast. And indeed, they did. We all ordered concretes, which is like a blizzard from Dairy Queen. Actually, Mary told Sam and I that the guy who invented the blizzard really stole the recipe from Ted Drewe’s. Our concretes were far more scrumptious than anything DQ has to offer, that’s for sure.
It’s a tradition to eat your frozen custard in the trunk of the car, so that’s exactly what we did in the parking lot. As we were all sitting there chatting, fireworks started to go off. It was definitely an incredible day.
Once we returned to Mary’s, we all got in our pjs and went to the game room for a movie. Sam and I hadn’t watched a single movie since we left, so this was a fantastic choice. We ended up watching Mona Lisa Smile, staring Julia Roberts, all about women’s college education in the 50’s. We all seemed to enjoy it.
Sam and I didn’t get to sleep until 1am, and we got a solid 4 hours of sleep, waking up at 5 the next morning. Mary bid us farewell, and gave us directions to see the arch as we exited St Luis. It was beautiful, just like our stay with the Bakers. Then Sam and I were off for the long journey to Washington DC!