Operation: Surprise, Part 3

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Today was a busy day. I had four schools to visit in the St. Louis area and then had to drive 2+ hours to Quincy, Illinois.

The two things I learned were this:

1) Don’t rely 100% on GPS navigation and,
2) I should have been a chef.

I bought a portable GPS device with precisely this trip in mind. It’s helped immensely… for the most part. I had a 1:30 appointment for which I arrived at 12:55 for. Perfect, I had time to go get some lunch first. My GPS tells me that a Chik-fil-a is close. Great! Well, 30 minutes later and not so great. It put me in some low-income neighborhood at someone’s house. How did I know this was incorrect? I thought GPS was supposed to be so great? Well, not always. -1 for GPS.

As I was on my way to the next site, I encountered a freeway that was closed. Completely. The detour didn’t really help me as I didn’t bring a map and didn’t really know where it was taking me. As I missed my exit on to the freeway, my GPS started freaking. It re-routed and sent me in a new direction. Less than five minutes later I was told to merge on the freeway that I had just passed due to closure the first time! So I realized I was just going to be going in circles unless I told the GPS to “avoid highways.” Okay, then it worked. Geesh.

That brought me to a culinary school, which brings me to the second thing I leaned on today.

I walked in and was greeted almost immediately with kitchen(s). Well, not completely, but the kitchens/classrooms were all completely glass on the hallway side. As the campus director walked me around explaining things to me, I could see in all of the kitchens and observe what was happening. It just looked like such a fun place to go to school. They cook and bake all day and get to taste each others food. Seeing this school coupled with my love of “Top Chef” on Bravo really makes me want to learn how to cook. As a side, I’ve been out of the office so much this year that I’ve only spent around $250 on groceries since the end of January. Whoa.

The best part of the culinary school? The the chef of the “healthy eating” class had just made some fresh berry smoothies and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Mmm.

In between my third and fourth appointments of the day, I had a little bit of time to kill. I was planning on going to the Transportation Museum, but one of the clients I talked to convinced me to go to nearby St. Charles to see the original state capitol (before Jefferson City) and to also see where Lewis and Clark set off on their expedition to the Pacific.

Yes, it was as boring as it sounds. Did I enjoy myself though? Of course.

St. Charles, Missouri is a small little town situated on the Missouri River. The main street is just a block off of the riverfront park and it definitely has maintained the old timey feel and is completely made of brick. It was pretty rough and uneven, but a site to see, nonetheless. It kind of reminded me of parts of the 405 in Orange County. I make a joke.

I parked by the old train depot and walked down to the river just in time to see one of those little boats like Mickey Mouse captained in the very first cartoon Walt Disney put out. I’m sure you’ve seen it.

I also drove down a gravel road a ways before I realized it wasn’t a road and was more like a path…for pedestrians. Oops.

I headed over to the Lewis and Clark museum. Completely lame. I paid $2.50 to see some diorama and a bunch of taxidermy of local wildlife. But hey, when am I going to get the chance to do that again?

Late afternoon I stopped in Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain (aka Sam Clemens) and the setting of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I wasn’t there in time to tour Twain’s boyhood home or see inside Becky Thatcher’s place, but I think I still saw enough. I don’t think I’ve ever read Tom Sawyer so the whole thing didn’t mean a whole lot to me, but I might some day.

I’ve been noticing that the Mississippi River is high in a lot of places this week and Hannibal was no exception. There was some sort of levee in place to stop the rising river from spilling into town. Interestingly enough, water was leaking through the levee I looked at, and it was pretty eerie. As I walked up the embankment, I could see that the river had flooded the riverfront park and further inland, I could make out the top of the railroad tracks peeking through the water. The railroad crossing arms were down, lights were flashing, alarm was ringing, and it didn’t stop. The whole scene was very peculiar.