I decided, on short notice, to visit a long time friend and his family in St. Louis last weekend over the long MLK holiday. I was to fly there from Washington D.C. via Chicago. I will try to make a very long story short. My plane from Chicago ended up in Little Rock Arkansas because the airport in St. Louis was closed while we were on final approach. Rumor had it in Little Rock the St. Louis airport would not reopen for more than a day. No longer trusting the airlines to meet my needs (nobody wants to spend a weekend alone in Little Rock?) I bailed on the air transportation system and hopped an overnight train to St. Louis, Amtrak’s Texas Star, in a private sleeper car to get the job done. I finally arrived in St. Louis at about 08:00 Saturday, 18 hours from DC to St. Louis! The train was fabulous! I highly recommend a private sleeper if you ever have the occasion to overnight on the rails. Upon arriving I found that a tree had come through the roof at my host’s home just after dawn Saturday, subsequently I witnessed a much larger section of the same tree which damaged my hosts home do significantly more damage to the neighbors house. St. Louis has beautiful old trees in its residential neighborhoods, but I am here to tell you friends that they are not fun in an ice storm. The power went out Saturday evening so we moved the entire family to the Embassy suites downtown. We did have a nice visit and my pal and I did manage to steal an evening at a local brewery/steak house. (For the record; one of the top five meals of my life!) I headed back to Washington DC Monday afternoon, two more delayed flights, I just made my connection in Chicago, however my luggage did not! A good time was had by all regardless of the turmoil caused by the terrible ice storms in the Midwest.

This is a photograph of me standing next to an open window on the Texas Star as we pulled into the downtown St. Louis station.