Hot in St. Louis

Well, we're here. Getting to St. Louis was a bit of a challenge, but it could have been worse. Really, the worst thing was the twins. That continues to be the worst thing, even though right now (at 5:05 pm central time) it is 97 degrees with 49% humidity, giving us a heat index of 109 degrees.

I wish we could have left them at home. But there was no one to leave them with. I think you can hire people to come stay with your kids, but hmm. We don't have air conditioning and you have to leave the door of our room open at night so the cats can come and go... I just can't imagine having someone stay there who wasn't... me, actually. So we had to bring them along.

And they are miserable. Which makes us fairly miserable.

That said, it wasn't a bad drive. We left rather late on Friday, 11:15 am or so, but we made it to Russell, Kansas by 8 pm or so and checked into a nice hotel, not a chain, it was called Fossil Creek Hotel & Suites. We got a suite -- the twins stayed in one room with a sofa and a cot, and Rocket Boy and I slept in the other room in a king size bed. There was a tornado warning over central Kansas that night -- I don't think we were ever under it, though we would have been if we'd stopped in Hays, KS, as the twins wanted us to do -- but we got a heavy, violent thunderstorm anyway. Constant lightning, for hours, very heavy rain, thunder, high winds, it was impressive.

We ate lunch at a pretty terrible truck stop restaurant in Limon, CO, but dinner was at a funky little place in Russell called Meridy's that had really good food. It looked like the kind of place my grandparents would have taken us to, but the cooking was excellent. We all agreed we'd eat there again on another trip.

Saturday we got on the road around 9 am, after a decent breakfast at our hotel, and then stopped at the Russell Stover factory candy store in Abilene. That was a bit of a disaster. A large, sweet young woman was working behind the counter who didn't really know what she was doing and who had too many things to do -- she had to sell the chocolate but also dole out ice cream and make shakes and whatnot. We made her life hard by ordering specialty items: a float, two shakes, and a sundae. They were out of caramel sauce and whipped cream and about half their usual flavors of ice cream. She kept having to ask her boss for advice. She made the sundae in the wrong size cup and her boss chewed her out for it. Her boss had to come out and sell the chocolate while she mis-made our treats. It all took forever. My shake was the last thing she made and she tried to get me to taste it to see if it was chocolatey enough. I finally lost my patience and said, "It's FINE, we just need to get going here," and her face fell. I can't get her out of my mind. I keep trying to figure out how I could make her life easier. I'm definitely not going to post a bad review on TripAdvisor or whatever, because it just seemed like it wasn't her fault. She clearly hadn't been trained properly, and they didn't seem to have any instructions for her to follow. And then her boss yelled at her, for such a small thing, but her boss was probably having a hard day too. I was sure we were witnessing pandemic/supply chain/inflation problems.

Oh well.

We ate lunch at a Bob Evans in Kansas City and then headed for St. Louis. It seemed to take forever to get across Missouri. We stopped at a convenience store that didn't have air conditioning, and at a rest stop where the women's bathroom was out of order. The twins complained about everything. At one point I told Rocket Boy that we could take a trip together for our 25th anniversary, because in five years the twins will be all grown up and self sufficient and won't have to come along. We can take a driving trip across country to visit Presidential museums and look at rocks (two things the twins wouldn't be caught dead doing). I wonder if that will happen. How will things be in five years?

Finally, around 7:30 or so, we got to Rocket Boy's apartment in St. Louis. It was only a little under 100 degrees and very windy. At least the wind made the humidity easier to stand. RB's upstairs apartment hadn't had the A/C on the whole three weeks he'd been gone, so it was as hot and humid as it was possible to be. We turned on the three window units and waited. It was dreadful. We made a grocery store run, and when we got back, it was still terribly hot. Finally, around 11 pm, the kids passed out, and soon after RB and I did too.

Today has been pretty awful so far. We slept until 10 am, which was funny -- clearly we were all desperately tired. We ate cereal for breakfast and started a load of laundry. Following FlyLady, I made our bed and straightened up the couch Teen A is sleeping on, and she was right, it made things look better and made me feel better. Tonight I plan to "shine the sink" before we go to bed.

Rocket Boy felt that he needed more pillows for us all, so we drove to a JCPenney to buy some. We found some great pillows for only $9 each, and I also chose some lovely organic towels, since he's a little short on towels. Those were on sale too. But getting out of Penney's took some doing. I don't know what was wrong, but we got in a long line that didn't move. Both clerks were dealing with difficult customers. Managers had to be called. The line got longer. Tempers got shorter. Because we were near the store entrance, it was hot and humid. 

I didn't really mind the line, even though I was sweating so much that those new towels I was holding were getting wet. My hair, which I should have braided or clipped back, was stuck to my neck and dripping. I was interested in how the other customers were coping, and just who was in Penney's shopping that day. I could have stood there a lot longer with so many people to watch. But the twins threw a fit! Nonstop complaining, so bad. No one else in the line sounded like them. I was embarrassed, especially since one of the "problem" families up at the front had NINE children, all dressed in coordinating colors (white, peach, and light green, in different combinations), none of whom were making any noise. I figured they had been to church that morning.

Finally Rocket Boy took the twins to the car, started it, and left them there with the a/c on, before coming back to join me. And soon after, the problem families' problems got solved somehow, and the line moved, and we were able to check out. 

Our next stop was the church of Starbucks, where we always go on Sunday mornings (though by now it was about 2 pm). It was only a five-minute drive away, but once we were inside we learned that it would be a 15-20 minute wait for our drinks. I didn't mind -- we found a table where we could all sit down -- but the kids were angry again. They groused away, staring at their phones. Teenagers are so much fun. Again, I got in some good people watching. At one point a large woman with strawberry-blonde hair came in, accompanied by a child with curly red hair. Watching them, I thought, she should have had another like that -- and then the door opened again and three more kids came in! Four little redheads! I was very impressed.

It was an interesting Starbucks for other reasons. It had a drivethrough, which is probably the reason for the wait -- the workers were concentrating on keeping the car line moving. Also, there were at least 10 different drinks on the counter that no one ever picked up. We did notice that the workers called people's names very softly, so you couldn't hear them. I saw people sitting around the room who did not seem to be paying any attention, so maybe some of the drinks belonged to them. Also, as at any Starbucks, there were difficult customers. The photo shows, in addition to a certain sad teenager, a woman (on the right) who had to have her drink re-made three times -- too much ice, the wrong number of shots, whatever. She kept criticizing the barrista and telling her to do it over.

The twins didn't want to stay and finish their drinks there, so we went on to our third stop, Trader Joe's. Here, they refused to come in the store, so Rocket Boy finally left them in the car with the engine (and a/c) on, even though he hated to do it. They really missed out, because Trader Joe's air conditioning was the best I've experienced on this trip, just fabulous. I could have spent the afternoon there.

We took a circuitous route home, to the twins' dismay, so that RB could show me some parts of the greater St. Louis area I hadn't seen before. Places a person could imagine living -- we're not going to, but still, it was interesting. We kept pointing things out to each other, and the twins complained about that too -- "Listen to the Boomers, can't stop talking for even a moment." I wanted to reach in the back seat and strangle them. Then I tried to be understanding. This is not a fun trip for a 14-year-old. We're all scared about Rocket Boy's surgery. I'm scared about how tomorrow is going to go. I still haven't tried to drive RB's car. 

So here we are. Rocket Boy went swimming and should be home soon, because the pool closed half an hour ago. We're going to eat out tonight, don't know where, we've already argued about it. Teen A wants to go to IHOP, Teen B wants to go to Denny's, Rocket Boy wants to go to an independent St. Louis type restaurant. I want to go somewhere without the twins, doesn't matter where.

Tomorrow is the surgery, at noon (we have to be there by 10 am). Wish us luck.