Short drive today, St. Louis, Missouri to Springfield, Illinois. Springfield is all about Abraham Lincoln. I’m even staying at the President Lincoln Hotel. I’ll be in Springfield for two nights.

Arguably the most important river confluence in U.S. history. Just north of St. Louis, where the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi River. Location of the start of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

 

 

Brisket this time 😋

Today, going to the top of the Gateway Arch. Bought the ticket yesterday, got $3 off with my National Parks annual pass 🙂

Yesterday, I drove from Columbia, Missouri to St. Louis Missouri, via a stop at the Winston Churchill museum in Fulton, Missouri.

The museum was great and I also had a great pulled pork sandwich at a nice little basement bar and grill in Fulton. So far, so good.

I arrived at my hotel in downtown St. Louis at around 4:00 pm and as I was unloading my car I realized that I didn’t have my laptop bag, which not only contained my laptop but also my iPad! I used location tracking and determined that the laptop was still at the hotel in Columbia. Crap!

Called the hotel, immediately got transferred to housekeeping. This was about 5:00 pm and all I got was voicemail. So, left a message hoping to hear from them in the morning.

This morning, I got a bit antsy, so called the hotel again about 8:00 am. Talked to someone in housekeeping, who said he would look around and call back. By 9:00 am, hadn’t received a call back so decided to just head to the hotel (125 miles away).

Got to the hotel and the front desk knew immediately that there was a found laptop. Gave them my ID and phone number (my name and number are on a luggage tag on the bag) and got my stuff back.

Then back to St. Louis, nice BBQ pork plate for lunch on the way, in my room at around 2:00 pm. So, though I lost about half a day of being a St. Louis tourist, I got my electronics back. I still have a full day in St. Louis tomorrow.