Missouri

Day Three. 

Day three was mostly about St. Louis.  

We began the morning in Ray's RV park where Ian and I tried to catch a Bass in the private lake. After an hour we hooked a couple of fish, both of which decided to eat the lure, break the line, and swim away so we headed off to St. Louis. 

I spent Junior High and part of High School in St. Louis so we drove through my old neighborhood while I quietly reminisced about the trouble I got into at each landmark. I drove past the homes of my good friends and remembered even more trouble. 

We stopped by the Meramac River where I spent many summer days swimming and cooling off in the nearly unbearable heat that my boys were learning all about. The Meramac is like a page out of a Mark Twain novel. I used to lay on the banks of the river in the shade, swing from a rope swing into the water, and basically waste the day. 

Apparently some time in the last twenty years the rope swing disappeared and this section of the river which was previously a private beach for my high school friends and me has been discovered by the "Duck Dynasty" fan club. It once was a scene from Huckleberry Finn and now is known by the locals as, "Redneck Rivera". At least it cooled us off. 

At night we met up with an old friend (who used to share the memories with me in the Meremac River) and we watched the St. Louis Cardnials play the San Diego Padres. Though we are from San Diego it was simply coincidental that they played the Cards but it meant no matter who won, we won. 

My boys got a few autographs and we headed to our seats for the game. I had a great time reconnecting with an old friend that I have not seen in twenty years. Since we are guys we pretty much picked up where we left off twenty years ago and had a great day.