Friday in St. Louis

Well we awoke Friday morning to more gray drizzle, it wasn't as cold, but it didn't look at all promising. Johnette was not feeling better, actually she was worse, and we started thinking walk-in clinic, ER, something.

Not feeling very adventurous, we went downstairs to the hotel dining room and much to our surprise and delight they serve a wonderful, albeit pricey breakfast buffet. It was great, especially those Belgian waffles.

We are all up and at 'em now, so off we go to the Hyatt hotel, a block or two away, to pick up our race packs, bibs, and T shirts. They had a nice Health and Fitness Expo, with lots of free goodies. My favorite were the Jelly Belly jellybeans with caffeine and other energy boosting stuff. Plus they were tasty, I would use these for my race.

We decided that Johnette should lie down, Dixie had gotten her some medicine and she was really dragging.

Meanwhile Dixie and I went to Macy's and then checked out the area eating establishments looking toward a nice dinner. We discovered that there was another Card's game that evening, and that everything would be really crowded until the game started. So we went back, got Johnette out of bed and sat in the lobby by the lovely fireplace, and played FARKLE. This is the most fun dice game. While playing our game, who do we see? Why it's Dawn! Good thing we were planted in the lobby. I helped her unload her car with her gear and her bike. She is riding 100 miles on Saturday and then running the marathon on Sunday, this is all part of her training for the IRON MAN in June.

We made friends with several members of the hotel staff, Jeff the general manager was very nice to us, he joined us for a while and chatted about the area. Brandon is the hotel food and beverage manager, he was really funny and nice, and helpful in directing us to a great little Italian restaurant about two blocks away. CHARLIE GITTO'S was great, they weren't terribly crowded and the food was wonderful. Unfortunately the portions were huge, so it was a bit of a waste, but wow, the food was great.