Blues Hockey - St. Louis is home to pro hockey, so we found a night the St. Louis Blues had discounts and hit our first pro game. We both love watching hockey, but know little about the rules other than goals are rare and fights will get you sent to "time-out." : )
Caving - Even though I'm not in Young Men's / Scouting anymore, I've still managed to be pretty involved in all the fun activities out here in our ward. I work with 2 of the young men's presidency, so we plot and plan a little over lunch what fun activities we could pull off. Last winter we decided to check out the Illinois Caverns, just across the Mississippi River near the po-dunk town of Red Bud, IL. We got lost along the way and had to ask directions from a thoroughbred hoosier. (redneck/hick in the Midwest-think farmer fran from the movie 'The Water Boy.") A YM's leader along on the trip who is a linguist was fascinated by how this man's dialect ever got to be the way it was. You sure don't have to drive too far from the city to find folk like this.Illinois Caverns is one of hundreds of caves in the area. Once there we spent hours in the underground play-ground tromping through knee-high rivers, scrambling around stalagtites and stalagmites, looking for sleeping bats and salamanders. The cave was beautiful with all of it's waterfalls and formations, and we've been back again already, we had so much fun.
NCAA Wrestling Championships - I spent 9+ years of my life wrestling, starting as a 115 lb 7th grader until I graduated at Weber State as a member of the wrestling club weighing 190. (I've gone up since then...) Over the last two years, the national championships of college wrestling have been held in St. Louis and have been incredible. This year we watched a competitor from Arizona with only one leg make it to the semi's. It's amazing to see:The talent these wrestlers have is amazing and it was cool to see some familiar faces competing for Idaho State, not to mention Utah's own Cael Sanderson. Cael won a gold medal in Athens, is the only wrestler in college to ever go undefeated (159-0) and now coaches for Iowa State. Even Michelle gets into the matches, having never been a fan until she fell in love with a wrestler.
Trip to Memphis - Over April Conference weekend we took a road-trip to Memphis with our friends the Pinkstons. We arrived on the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, so we went to the Loraine motel (where it happened) first. Thousands had turned out for a memorial service, which was really neat. We saw everyone you'd expect to be there, Sharpton, Jackson, King's family, etc. It was about ten minutes into it when we looked around and realized we were probably only 4 of the 6 white people present in the crowd of thousands. What a unique experience.
Something that's been fascinating to me in visiting historical sites is the mood you get when you are there on an anniversary. We had the same experience visiting the Kennedy assassination site in Dallas. For me, it makes it all the more real when I can feel the weather, think about the proximity to holidays in the case of these families, etc.
Springfield, IL - My sister Kristen was our first visitor to come out and spend some time with us over her spring break last year. We had a great time checking out the free museums, free zoo, eating Gus's Pretzels and more. We also tool a little trip a couple hours north to Abe Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois. There was lots to see and all really well done. Our favorite part was when an actor in period dress spoke to a few of us in a theater about Lincoln along the theme of "If the ghosts of those before us could speak." At the very end of his show he gradually started to disappear until he was gone. It had been a very realistic illusion all along! Two thumbs up for the Lincoln museum. Another thing that struck us in learning about Lincoln's life was just how much he was hated back then, but
yet praised today. Reading what the media wrote about him sounded like our media at the time tearing our president apart.We also took Kristen down to Southern Illinois to go rock climbing in Shawnee National Forest at Jackson Falls. It's a bit of a drive now for us to do a little climbing, but we climb in the most beautiful forests out here. Our favorite part is the old knotted rope left to lower yourself down the climbing area. It's a bit tricky climbing up with a loaded pack on. No casualties yet.
It sure is nice to have visitors!
(More coming...)
4 comments:
Nice write up. You 2 have lots of fun. Way to take advantage of living somewhere new.
You did it! Thanks for the update. You sure have had some fun adventures!
Nice head lamp!
wow, we wish you guys were out here to be hardcore with us!!
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