STL.

This weekend Nate and I drove to St. Louis to visit his sister Caitlin and her husband Andy. Nate's mom and sister Hannah drove from Wichita and met us there. They live in the 'burbs east of the city and we had a great time. On Saturday after a great breakfast, we headed to the St. Louis Zoo. The zoo is free! Of course it was a pretty popular place so we had to park really far away. It was worth it though. It was probably the best zoo I've ever been to, and we didn't even see all of it.

Andy and Nate getting excited about the St. Louis Zoo.

Penguin! There were king penguins inside the exhibit.
I got a video of a penguin doing a belly flop. 

They were hiding but a zoo keeper came up and called them by name and they came running.

 Have you ever heard of a bush dog? I hadn't, but they were actually pretty cute.

They are found in Central and South America.

The hippos were one of the neatest animals to watch because they looked so graceful in the water but are one of the deadliest animals in Africa. I finally got one to look at me for a photo. It was pretty warm outside and after walking all around the zoo, we were really hot and tired and thirsty and hungry. We went to a local place called Fitz's where they bottle their own soda. With my lunch I ordered a bottomless mug of diet root beer.

The characters included Queen Spatula, The Dude, Super Ninja Monkey, The Biscuit Farmer, and The Platypus.

 Caitlin and Andy brought out a game called Quelf. It is quite an unusual board game. The characters (above) move around the board to reach the end. When it's your turn, you draw a card based on the colored space you land on and then you have to do what the card said.

Andy, Nate, and Hannah playing Quelf

 We experienced everything from hide-and-go-seek, an interpretation of a sheriff on an ostrich coming upon a beached whale, and a rule that required every sentence spoken to end with -izzle. We had a lot of fun. It's probably not the best game to play with people you don't know very well; it can be quite embarrassing.

For dinner on Saturday, we walked to a local pizza place then drove to Ted Drewes for some frozen custard. Nate and I shared an Oreo custard. It was pretty good. This morning after church we had lunch at Andy and Caitlin's and then hit the road. The drive was 4½ hours. Not too bad. We're back in Nashville. Miles missed us. He only puked once while we were gone. And he even tried to pull the rug over it to hide it. How thoughtful.

We are home again,