STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE TRIP THAT WENT WRONG

 

So, okay, Mrs. C and I were going to have a long weekend in my much-loved home town. Some good dinners, theater, a special art show, maybe some touristy stuff. As mentioned, hot new restaurant on Thursday, the first night. Food poisoning, up much of the night with bi-directional GI eruptions. Exhausted, in bed asleep most of Friday. Managed to get out to dinner Friday to a favorite place and couldn’t finish an appetizer. We had theater tickets Saturday and did get out to a very funny show called The Play That Went Wrong, although I wasn’t always following it well.  Dinner at a little Italian place, where I made it into the second course before giving up.

Then things got worse. Our flight home Sunday wasn’t until 6 so we got to the Metropolitan Museum for the show we wanted to see. It was raining when we went to La Guardia and, as the day ended, a heavy fog settled over the airport. Close to half of the AA flights were canceled, including ours. Got online looking for alternatives. No non-stop seats the next day. Got an airport hotel and booked us through Chicago with a 5.5 hour layover. But La Guardia had high winds Tuesday morning and only one runway was in use. We sat on a taxiway for more than an hour before leaving on a two hour flight. Few seats had been available, so 6’ 3”/ 190 cm me was stuck in a middle seat for 3+ hours. When we got to Chicago our STL flight was running 90 minutes late just because. It turned out to be 3.5 hours late, with a change of aircraft because there was a pressure leak in a cockpit window of the original plane.  

So we got home 30 hours late, but we’re here. First world problems, right?                          

WHY WE CAME HERE

Mrs. C and I subscribe to the digital edition of the New York Times. One morning in early January she read an article and passed it to me, https://tinyurl.com/4s5amvuy (I hope it’s not behind a paywall). "Ï’d really like to see that!” she told me. I asked her what she had on in the middle of February. Nothing special, so I opened my laptop and here we are.

Armia Khalil is an Egyptian immigrant, a sculptor and a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 13 years. How he became acquainted with a Met curator who took an interest in his work and ended up placing this in a current exhibition is much too long a story for here. I commend the Times article to you. The sculpture is titled “Hope — I Am a Morning Scarab.” The scarab beetle was a symbol of hope for the ancient Egyptians and one appears on the top of the head.  

Other than that, I still can’t eat much and am pretty weak thanks to Thursday’s restaurant. La Guardia Airport was socked with fog yesterday and our flight was canceled. We’ll get home today through inconvenient routes and times, but we’ll get there.              

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - OUTREACH

 

This has turned out to be a disappointing visit to my favorite place in the world for street photography due to Thursday night’s restaurant disaster. Still, there are opportunities. We saw this on 42nd Street, under the viaduct where Park Avenue goes up and around Grand Central Terminal. The person was still there when we came back the other way a couple of hours later. Sadly common in America and likely to get worse.              

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - TAXI!

 

Yesterday was the rare day with no post. On Thursday night, we went out to a hot new restaurant, shown in Friday’s post. I got food poisoning. Bad. Up much of the night blowing stuff out of both ends. In bed asleep most of yesterday but better today, fortunately. Really blew a hole in a three day trip. This was the scene as we exited Grand Central Terminal onto 42nd Street after the infamous meal.                

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - DINNER IN MANHATTAN

 

Well, we’re back in the place I love the best and like to pay for the least. We just got here and so many images! We went to dinner at a new restaurant in Grand Central Terminal, the Grand Brasserie. I thought it might resemble Le Train Bleu at the Gare d’ Ést in Paris. No. A lot louder. This is NYC. The food was pretty good, at New York prices.           

THESE LITTLE TOWN BLUES

 

Granddaughter Ellie wanted to go to the top of the Arch last weekend so I had to take the usual picture. This isn’t all of downtown St. Louis but it’s the better part of it. I spent my whole working career, 47 years, here. It’s not doing well post-Covid but there are rays of hope. But I’ll be far away later today. Homeward bound.                      

AT THE ORCHID SHOW 5

 

POW. I promise I’ll get to something new. Traveling tomorrow. Home sweet home.