Friday, June 10, 2011

Return to the Midwest


Every trip includes some adventures, and getting to return to my old stomping ground reminded me of some things I've missed. Here's some random observations/thoughts from my trip:

After a plane stops in the middle of take-off, it's a little nerve-racking to get back on it. And I was reminded that my greatest frustration with flying is losing all control.

I rented a car for the time I was in town and relied on my GPS to get around St. Louis. I realized that updating my two-year-old GPS would have been smart and might have saved me some of the "recalculating" and ending up in a completely different place than I intended. I also appreciate that my current town has just one interstate. I seemed to take at least two different interstates to get anywhere.

As I was driving around, I started to think that St. Louis country radio stations were getting more new music than the stations I listen to at home. But then I realized I never spend that much time in the car when I'm at home, so I probably just miss the newer music. I decided I haven't missed much by not hearing Taylor Swift's "Mean."

I still love my car. My fear when I drive a rental car is that I will want to buy a newer car, but the whole time I was driving a Chevy Malibu, I actually missed my Honda CR-V. Also, these new cars are really fancy. It took turning the car on and off multiple times to realize the radio doesn't turn off until I open the door.

There are certain foods that I always associate with Missouri and my time in college. The first -- crab rangoon. I don't usually eat Chinese food, but they served these in the sorority house, and I loved them. I've had them other places since leaving college, but they weren't nearly as good as the ones I ate on Saturday night in St. Louis. The second -- frozen custard. It still wins as my favorite ice cream treat. But I was sad to learn the place I always went to in college has closed.

I experienced two new things while in St. Louis -- cicadas and an earthquake. I'm not sure how Virginia has escaped the cicadas invasion, but I am really glad. Those things are deafening and huge! And then there was the earthquake. I woke up a little after 3 a.m. Tuesday morning to my bed shaking. I thought I was imagining it or that someone was opening the garage door. But when I got up Tuesday morning, I learned that there was really a small earthquake about 40 miles outside the city at that time. I was a little relieved to know I wasn't imagining things at 3 a.m.

Nothing like a vacation to give me something to blog about. A couple of friends also confirmed they read this, so I'm a bit more motivated to blog more regularly.

2 comments:

  1. I went to Ohio once years ago to visit Maggie Stein during a cicada invasion (it was one of those every-17-years cicada invasions). It was really something. It sounded like a huge crowd was under my window shaking maracas.

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  2. a chevy malibu is my dream car.

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