June 8, 2004
Hampton Inn
St. Louis, MO
The tour rolls on as Lavinius and Cooch enter Day 4 of their midwest swing...
On tap for the day were three major things:
1) Meramec Caverns- Stanton, MO (about 60 mi west of St. L)
2) Sox/Cards game later that night
3) "Big Bang" piano bar- LaClede's Landing (St. L waterfront)
First stop was the Caverns. Cooch and I wanted to do something a little off the beaten path- something that would give the trip a unique twist. We mutually decided to make the trek to Meramec Caverns. It was supposed to be one of the top cave destinations in the country due to their unique stalagtite/stalagmite formations. (Note: For those of you dumbasses who don't know what stalagtites and stalagmites are, do a search. You mofos should have learned that in high school anyway.).
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. On our way to the Caverns, our road parallelled the world famous Route 66. (Note: For those of you who don't know what Route 66 is, first off, you're dumb as shit. Secondly, be grateful as hell there's the internet where you can search anonymously without letting the rest of the world know you're dumber than a bag of rocks. Look, I'm just doing a chronicle here, not teaching Science or Geography class).
Just busting balls here. Hope I didn't offend anyone. If I did, I state in a tactful way to lighten the fu*k up!
So we get to within 5 miles of the Caverns. By now, we're in an area so hick, it makes Cooch's residence in Lisbon Falls look like a major metropolis. Keep in mind that Cooch lives in a town so small, his arm is in two different zip codes...
Even our cell phone carrier, Cingular, didn't cover the area we were in, and Cingular is supposed to have the largest coverage area of all the major wireless carriers. When you're in an area and you have no service, red flags...
We got to the Caverns around lunchtime. Since we were both hungry, we decided to grab a bite to eat in their in-house restaurant. Kind of reminded me of a down-scaled Denny's. And if I'm downscaling Denny's, well, use your imagination...
So I order myself a BBQ chicken sandwich. And Cooch orders...you guessed it, a friggin turkeyburger. How Cooch managed to live off those things on our trip I'll never know. Wasn't there anything more appetizing, such as roadkill, he could have eaten instead?
But I digress. My food was predictibly mediocre. Cooch's turkeyburger was even worse. My guess is it rivaled Play-Dough.
Once we got done eating, it was time to start the tour. Our tour guide (forgot his name) was an interesting mofo to say the least. First off, dude couldn't say five words without losing his wind. The fucker was panting like a dog in heat. During the tour, he had to stop several times to catch his wind. Fucking guy made David Wells look like Lance Armstrong.
Our tour guide aside, the tour itself was very impressive. We found out that the caves went on for close to 30 miles, but the general public only gets to walk about two of those 30 miles. Pretty cool. Plus, Meramec Caverns is one of the only caverns in the country (or perhaps THEE only one) that had a movie screen form from their formations. At the end of the tour, our oxygen deprived tour guide led us into their "movie theatre" where we were treated to a kalidescope of colors on their nature-made movie screen, and it was all done to music. The tour guide controlled all the colors and designs/patterns that were shown on the screen from the push of a button. It was a little cheesy, but definitely unique.
After the tour, Cooch and I decided to get some fudge from the fudge stand that was in the place. Both of us were very non-commital as to what kind of fudge we wanted, so we just pestered the shit out of the girl behind the counter to give us samples of just about every flavor they had. I developed a guilty conscience after a while, so finally, Cooch decided to get a small block of cookies n' cream. Let me tell you, that shizzle was the shiznit. In other words, it was damn delicious.
Soon we were on our way back to the mainland (St. Louis). The Sox/Cards game was at 6:10, and we didn't have much time to kill once we got back into town. Plus the weather started getting really bad, and soon enough, we were getting rained on like a mofo. Our game looked to be in serious jeopardy. We were just waiting on our hotel room for the rain to stop. We had that luxury because our living quarters were just 6-8 blocks from the stadium.
Finally, at around six or so, we saw that the rain cleared up, so we decided to head down there. Once we got into the stadium, Cooch and I ran into this young St. Louis fan. He noticed that I had a Red Sox shirt on and he wanted to know what it said. (Note: It read: THE DROUGHT IS OVER! THE REIGN BEGINS! BOSTON RED SOX- 2004 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS). So I answered him, probably not in the most tactful way, "It says the Sox kicked your ass last year!" Needless to say, the kid was taken aback by it. Look like I almost drove him to tears. After I said it, I immediately wanted to take it back, because it was clear he wasn't there to talk smack, and Cardinals fans have a rep for being the classiest fans in baseball. So I apologized to him. He didn't seem to be too forgiving, so he probably went home thinking that Sox fans are fucking pricks.
Hey, I felt bad. Keep in mind that I'm a Sox fan. I've taken more verbal abuse than the majority of sports fans in the country in my lifetime, so naturally, when an opposing fan steps to me, my defense mechanism goes up. But still, it was an dickhead thing to do, and Cardinal fan, if you're reading this, I'm sorry brother. But that still doesn't change the fact that the Sox still kicked your asses and celebrated in your city till the wee hours of the morning!
As far as the game goes, the Sox had lost the first two games in St. Louis. They needed this game just to salvage one. Sox Nation turned their lonely eyes to David Wells, who had been knocked around like a speedbag this year. Against one of the top hitting clubs in the bigs, it seemed there was no end in sight. But I'll be damned if Wellsie didn't prove Cooch and I wrong. The guy was just "on" that day. You know when a pitcher is on, too. He's got all his shit working. He's throwing all his pitches for strikes. He's got the other team so off-balance. They're sitting fastball, Wells is dropping a deuce (okay, bad analogy there). They're sitting curveball, Wells busts a fastball on the inside corner. I mean all night dude was bringing it.
Sox won the game 4-0, their first win in St. Louis since that fateful night that Sox fans will not soon forget.
After the ballgame, it was time to have some fun. So Cooch and I hit this piano bar called the "Big Bang" located in St. Louis' famous "LaClede's Landing" located on the banks of the Mississippi. That's not necessarily a good thing. Especially with the repugnant odor coming from those waters.
The Big Bang was...well...bangin'. You had two guys on dueling pianos, playing and singing mostly 80's songs. The crowd there was mostly college-aged kids, and everyone in the bar was singing along, so it made for a high energy atmosphere. Cooch and I had some drinks and enjoyed the live music. Cooch was actually trying to put in a request for a song- "November Rain" by Guns n' Roses. They couldn't do the request because one of the piano players who normally plays that song wasn't there that night, so his request would have to wait till the next night.
At about 2:30, Cooch and I headed back to our hotel, as we prepped for yet another day of our never-ending journey through the mid-west...
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