Memorial Day Weekend

The weekend was quite busy, beginning on Friday when I took my niece to Barnes for a scheduled procedure which was reported to involve 3-4 hours of time. After being prepped, we hung out in her "room" for a couple of hours. Part of the time was spent in the dark (literally!) as the power went off in the hospital. It took an inordinate amount of time for the generators to kick on, and even then the computers did not come back up for a bit. We were happy that she wasn't on the table when all this occurred. The test went fine, but the bottom line may be that she will need to have surgery done in the not too distant future. As these things go, it took a lot longer than expected, and I did not get home until 5:30.

Cardinals tea light

That night a friend came over and we did some painting together. I had purchased a tea light cake candle last year that I wanted to decorate, and she had a canvas that she was working on. She has a lot of paint colors that I don't have, as well as numerous brushes. It was fun to paint and catch up.

Saturday I played catch up with all the things I did not accomplish on Friday, and Sunday I met up with a photographer friend at the Galleria. From there we went to University City to photograph "Mannequins on the Loop." Store mannequins were decorated in recycled materials by local artists and placed along Delmar. They are quite clever, and were fun to see. The Loop is filled with so many interesting buildings, storefronts and bicycle racks that it is easy to quickly pass time taking pictures. Sunday night I squeezed in a game of pickleball. Due to the holiday weekend, it was not at all crowded so I got lots of playing time in.

Jim & Kirby at Confluence Point

On Monday Jim and I set off with the dog to go to Ted Jones Confluence Point State Park, where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet. Boy, did technology fail us! The car GPS kept taking us down roads that were closed, and not temporarily due to flood waters or anything. We finally got to the back side of it by taking a day pass road in the Audubon Center at Riverlands. There weren't many people there - gee, I wonder why?

From there we visited the National Great Rivers Research & Education Center across the river, and then stopped at the Confluence Tower. Jim had not been to either of those two places, and I had gone last year because each of them had one of the stl250 birthday cakes.

Confluence Tower

The flags at National Great Rivers Research & Education Center were flying at half mast, reminding us that Memorial Day is about remembering those who gave up their lives so that we can live ours freely. God bless all the fallen soldiers!

Memorial Day