The Road to Kentucky: Day 3

Today was all about detours …

I wanted to get gas at Ft Riley, Kansas, but the security guard (read: not a real soldier) wouldn’t let me on base without a decal and I didn’t feel like filling out paperwork, so I filled up at the Shell by the gate. And wow … did I forget how boring driving through Kansas is …

A few hours later, I wanted to eat dinner … I saw a billboard for a roadside eatery, followed the (bad) directions and got lost, only to find the restaurant under construction. I had dinner at a McDonald’s …it was so disappointing; I should have just stopped at a Denny’s instead.

I weighed my car in Missouri, fulfilling a mandatory step in Army paperwork .

And finally, driving into St Louis, I drove through it … into Illinois, because of incorrect directions from the hotel’s front desk … fortunately, this must be a common mistake, because the first exit has a lane dedicated to doing a u-turn and returning from where you came … and I found the Hyatt just fine. (Note: 1L Fiji water bottles are only $4 in St Louis as opposed to $5 in Denver …)

This Hyatt is built into Union Station, so its part mall, part hotel, and part club. When asking the on-duty concierge where a good place to drink would be, he suggested Maggie O’Brien’s across the street and a bar at the end of the promenade. When asked about the club actually attached to the building, he replied, “Oh. That’s a hip-hop club.”

Went to Maggie O’Briens, had two excellent Guinnesses (with clovers), a pint of Schlafly, a St. Louis microbrew, and finished off with a free shot of “orange”, the bartender’s concoction that he made for me and a few of his coworkers … a nice time out in a nice town. The bartender appreciated I asked for local microbrews, since some customers ask, "Got any beer from around here?" which is like asking a butcher if he has dead animals in the back.

Tomorrow: New Years in Louisville …