On May 29, Anna and her mom drove down I-70 for a weekend in St. Louis. Although they did many things, the main goal was to attend a book signing on Saturday by one of Anna's favorite author, Michael Connelly. Connelly is a well-known author throughout the crime/mystery genre and has many New York Times bestseller books, mainly for his Harry Bosch novels.
On Friday night, Anna and her mom met up with and had dinner with Uncle Jim and Aunt Vivian at the Spaghetti Factory in Laclede's Landing. Anna definitely recommends to everybody that if they visit a city with a Spaghetti Factory that they should eat at one.
"Even though I had seen Jim and Vivian the week before, it was nice seeing them in their home town and I recommend the cheese bread at the restaurant, it's spectacular."
Saturday morning came and Anna was gearing up to see her favorite author early that afternoon but before she could do that, she wanted to convince Jess to bring down the boys so they could all go the free zoo Saturday afternoon after the book signing. Although it took quite a bit of time doing so, Jess was swayed to travel 3 1/2 hours with 2 boys in the car and visit with Anna and Valita. She had lots of fun driving down!!
After convincing Jess to come down, Anna and Valita went to Union Station to shop and smell the fudge but they did resist the temptation of buying it and leaving the fudge in the hot car while they were at the zoo. After that they went to the book signing in this awesome little bookstore called Big Sleep Books.
"The store was small but pretty cool because all they had were mystery novels. I could definitely see myself shopping there if I lived in St. Louis."
After standing in line for 20 minutes, Anna finally got to shake hands with one of her most beloved authors, Michael Connelly.
"He was just so normal. He just walked into the bookstore like he was just another person to get his book signed. So as a relatively famous person, I thought he was nice and thoughtful and left-handed, which makes him so much more cool."
So, after the signing, Anna and Valita headed over to the zoo to meet up with Jess and the boys. Although the zoo was packed that day, everything went great. Turner got to pet (well, attempted to pet) the stingrays with grandma and then got to see bears, penguins and very large cats, which was the main attraction for him that day. Everybody got to see a family of giraffes, a dad, a mom, who had recently gave birth, and their baby giraffe, which wasn't that small but it was still technically a baby.
The funniest part at the zoo was when a really large gorilla was checking Anna out. He was out away from the glass when the group approached the gorilla but when they moved toward the glass, the gorilla followed them. Anna then sat down on the rock right next to the glass and the gorilla just walked over and started checking her out and sat right next to her on the other side of the glass. This was not one of Anna's finest moments since this is not the kind of man she is trying to attract!
Turner also enjoyed the monkeys because he realized that their big toes resemble thumbs.
After 4 hours at the zoo, the crew headed back to the hotel for some r&r.
Sunday came and the group FINALLY made a decision on what to do that day before heading home. The decision was to go to Grant's Farm, the large area of land where President Grant had land and where there was a stable of clydesdale horses and an park with many exotic animals, including an area where baby goats can be fed by anybody with a bottle of milk bought at Grant's Farm. Turner and Anna decided to feed the goats but because the goats were Turner's size and jumping on him, he bowed out and gave the bottle to Anna to finish feeding the goats with.
"Some goats were really bullyish and pushing the other goats away with their small horns but I took care of the bullies and fed the other ones as well."
When the crew was finished at Grant's Farm, they headed back on I-70 West for home.
"I really got to understand what makes St. Louis exciting and enjoyable and would love to make a trip back there soon."
Anna recommends to anybody who loves to read crime/mystery novels to really try out Michael Connelly because she thinks that he's one of the best writer in that genre and she has recommended him to many others and they have all liked him. You can check out his books at michaelconnelly.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment