St. Louis - Arches and Historic Buildings

No trip to St. Louis is complete without viewing the Gateway Arch. The arch and Mississippi Riverfront park were just across the freeway from my hotel. While my room wasn't perfectly aligned to the arch (I could only see half of it from my hotel room) there were spectacular views from the hotel bar.

Before the rain moved in, I was able to spend a couple hours at the end of the day relaxing at the park and under the arch. I thought about taking the tram to the top, but the scheduling didn't work. Also, it was easier to view the St. Louis skyline from the rotating restaurant/bar at the top of the Millennium hotel.

Under the arch is the Museum of Westward Expansion. There is a fairly large Lewis and Clark display in this museum. The obligatory gift shop is also under the arch.

A series of bridges crossed the Mississippi River to the Illinois side. There were many other tourist attractions near the arch - riverboat cruises and horse drawn carriages.

Near the southwest edge of the riverfront park is the Old Historic Cathedral.

To the west of the arch is the Historic Courthouse, which was built in 1828 and was the site of the early Dred Scott hearings.

Missouri Botanical Gardens

What better way to end a long day of talking science education policy than finding a monument to honor American Science. We found such a monument at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

After our conference ended for the day, we piled onto a bus and headed to the gardens. We had about an hour and a half to explore the gardens. We couldn't have picked a better time to visit. Most of the bulbs were in full bloom, as were many of the flowering trees.

The star magnolias were just finishing their blooms, but the saucer magnolias were spectacular.

My favorite area was the Japanese Gardens. The weeping higan cherries were blooming all around the lake.
The area around the lake was very peaceful and relaxing. On the far side of the lake, the Yoshino Cherries were in full bloom. I'm not sure what this tree is but the bright pink blooms along the branches were quite unusual.

After touring the grounds, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner in the Spink Pavillion that consisted of grilled chicken breast and grilled beef tenderloin with roasted garlic sauce accompanied with cabernet gorgonzola whipped potatoes and roasted mixed vegetables. Yum!

After dinner, it was back to the hotel to catch up on some work.

New Orleans

A business trip sent me to New Orleans last week. I was stuck in the hotel's conference rooms during most of the day, but I did have the chance to get out during the evenings. On Wednesday and Thursday night, I went back to the hotel after dinner to catch up on some work. Friday night, I went to listen to some music after dinner. At first we went to a club on Frenchman street called d.b.a. to hear Hot Club of New Orleans. They played a mix of traditional, fusion, and gypsy jazz. When their set ended, we didn't want to hang around for another hour for the next band to set up, so headed across the street. Hint about d.b.a. - the cheap wine is really really cheap. One taste and I knew it was a hangover in a glass. I couldn't even finish it because it was so bad.

The bar across the street (The Spotted Cat) had a great blues band with lots of sax. It was a tiny little dive bar, but the music was fun and the crowd was just chillin to the tunes. We stuck around for an hour until the band's set ended. My smoke allergies kicked in, and it was back to the hotel for me. (I also had to work all day Saturday.)



On Saturday night we wanted to see the Mardi Gras parade by the Krewe du Vieux. It was going to head along Royal and then turn up Bienville through the French Quarter.

We decided to eat at Arnaud's since the parade would go right past the restaurant. We reserved a table in the section of the restaurant with live jazz; it was quite nice. We had a table next to the Bourbon Street window, so we got to watch all the crazies, drunks, and bums walk past. It made for very interesting people watching.

After dinner, we waited at the corner of Bienville and Burbon for about an hour, but the parade still hadn't arrived. We decided to head down to Royal, and got there just as the parade was passing by.
This was a smaller parade than those that will come next weekend, but it was fun and laid back. After depriving some children of beads, we headed further down the road so we could snatch up beads guilt free. It was a lot of fun!

New Orleans still isn't fully up and running, but everyone there was extremely friendly. The staff at restaurants, shops, and the hotel repeatedly thanked everyone for coming back to New Orleans and supporting their economy. If you are thinking about heading down that way, please go. They can use the tourism!

Washington DC

I was supposed to be in Washington DC this weekend for business, but the "stomach flu" grounded me at home. Since it was a business trip, I probably wouldn't have had much of a chance for sight-seeing anyway, so here are a few pictures of some of the memorials from a previous trip to DC.






Lincoln Memorial













Washington Memorial









World War II Memorial













Korean Memorial









Vietnam Memorial

Flagstaff

I had to make a quick trip to Flagstaff on Friday for work. It was raining pretty hard when I left Phoenix, so I anticipated getting caught in the snow on the way up. The weather was actually pretty nice. There were some light flurries near Camp Verde, but otherwise it was clear. It was actually bright and sunny in Flagstaff when I got there.

I have to say - I'm not a fan of snow or cold. Just the little bit that I slipped walked around the NAU campus was enough to remind me why I live in Phoenix. I was quite happy to get back in a heated car to leave.

On the way back home to Phoenix, I took a couple of pictures of the snow. I have to admit the snow and the pines were very pretty together. I took a few whiffs of the cold mountain air, then got back in the warm car to go home.


It was just starting to snow again as I left town, and the weather got much worse as I got closer to Phoenix. The snow flurries quickly turned to fog and sleet/icy rain. Once again, near Camp Verde, it was snowing, but pretty hard this time. I thought about pulling over at "sunset point" rest area to take a few pictures, but I could barely see the exit, much less any scenery.

It was still raining by the time I got back to Phoenix, but at least it wasn't snow.