St. Louis and the Ozarks

We arrived safely yesterday in St. Louis after an uneventful flight (always a good thing!). We were even a few minutes early getting in. Picking up our rental car went very smoothly too, as did getting to our hotel. Once there, we had about 45 minutes before we were to meet my first husband's brother and his wife who live in Florissant. David had made reservations for us at a good Italian restaurant just up the street from the hotel, which was so kind of him.

We met them at 7 and had a lovely time catching up and enjoying some good pasta (me) and prime rib (Jon). We were there for two hours and enjoyed every minute! Before we left, we took a few pictures which I will download and post soon.

Today we got up, had breakfast in our hotel, packed and began our drive through southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. It took us from 10:30 until 4 to get here, which included lunch and two grocery stops. We are in Mountain View, Arkansas with the Ozark mountains just a few miles away. We drove through Ozark National Forest just before arriving here and the scenery was wonderful. The forest of course did not look like a Pacific Northwest forest; it's all deciduous and hilly rather than rugged peaks. We did not stop to take any photos but we may tomorrow.

Mountain View is a little town of about 2000 and has quaint little shops - my favorite is "Linda's Curl Up and Dye Salon"! We had dinner at the "WingShack" tonight - chicken wings with your choice of 11 (!) different sauces and if you order 10 or more, you can choose 2 sauces, which of course we did. I had a 3 piece catfish dinner - catfish, dinner salad, hush puppies, baked beans, baked potato with sour cream and butter - and Jon had a 10 oz rib eye steak, 10 grilled shrimp, dinner salad, baked potato with toppings and we each had a "soft" beverage, all for a little over $40, all of which is to say that the economy here is very friendly to tourists!

Tomorrow we will spend several hours at the Ozark Folk Center which is a mile or two away. As we understand it, the center is a state park that is set up like Williamsburg VA - a series of stores, workshops etc. with docents in period dress (1800s to early 1900s) demonstrating a variety of crafts, skills etc. that are common in the Ozark culture. I am really looking forward to it! We'll have lunch there and then depart for Memphis, home of the Civil Rights museum across the street from the Loraine Hotel where Dr. King was assassinated, of Graceland and of Beale street blues and jazz. We hope to find time to eat some great BBQ at Corky's and to take a Mississippi river cruise on a steamboat. We are there for two nights and the day in between so we'll be busy!

I plan to take photos tomorrow at the folk center and then in Memphis and hopefully download them together, choosing a few to post in a day or two. Weather here is sunny and in the low to mid 60s currently - hope you are enjoying sunshine at home too!