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.

Occurs daily 😀

Yummm…

Today I drive from Columbia, Missouri to St. Louis, Missouri, where I’ll spend three nights. My hotel is at a great location, less than a mile from the gateway arch.

Since it’s such short drive to St. Louis, I’m first going to visit the Winston Churchill museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.  It was a this college in 1946 the Churchill gave his famous “Iron Curtain” speech. Should be interesting.

Kind of a hazy day, but still a spectacular show.

Photo shot with my DSLR and my makeshift solar filter (using an eclipse glasses lens and lots of duct tape). Happily, the auto-focus even worked! Now, hope for no clouds this afternoon!

I suspect every photo shop in the country is sold out of solar filters (the one in Wichita was, anyway). But, one half of a pair of eclipse glasses and some duct tape and I’m set. Already tested it on the full sun, worked great. Now all I need is a clear sky.