Toynbee!

Summary of an awesome lunch hour: got the picture I needed, Left Bank Books had the book I was looking for (Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island), and I spotted this Toynbee tile when walking back to my car after picking up a delicious smoked chicken salad sandwich at Local Harvest. Never noticed it before, and I can't count how many times I've walked through that crosswalk (Locust & 10th). By the way, since I did that post on Toynbee tiles in St Louis a couple years ago, Francis and I did watch the documentary Resurrect Dead, and it is excellent. You can stream it on Netflix.

ETA: Uh oh, the Fish Fry Map fell off the front page! You can find it here, and on the side bar!

Vacuum Cleaner Museum

First things first: Stephanie Weir, if you are still reading my blog after all these years of me neglecting your suggestion, THANK YOU AND I'M SORRY! For real, I have hung onto this email from Tacony about the opening of their Vacuum Cleaner Museum for the past 3 years. At first it was not open on weekends, so it was on the list with the Corn Cob Pipe Museum for that mythical future non-holiday weekday we were off work to visit corporate museums. Yeah...

Blustein Bride's House

I stopped to take a photo of this sign a couple weeks ago because I wondered about the business that used to be here. Not long after that I found out there is a major restoration of the building going on. The St Louis Post-Dispatch had a story with some great pictures last week. Click here.

What's good for fish fry this week? We're going to Epiphany.

#200

I've been waffling for weeks about what to post for blog #200, and I finally decided that since it nearly coincides with the 5 year anniversary, I felt like indulging my sentimentality. I started this blog when I was at a job that was... let's say, not exciting, and I asked myself what my dream in life would be if I was independently wealthy. The answer then, and now, is travel without restriction. The only way to turn that into a job is to tell people about your travels, but I'm neither a writer nor photographer. Still, I really believe that people should go out of their way to see awesome things, and all I really wanted to do was pique your curiosity enough to encourage you to visit for yourself. Along the way, my friends contributed photographs, I started talking to my future husband thanks to our trip to Bonne Terre Mine, we got married at the top of the Gateway Arch, and five years later traffic has increased tenfold. It's a hobby that is all the work of a second job with none of the pay, but it allows me to continue daydreaming about traveling full time.

What's Good

Welcome to my new Thursday feature of stuff that is awesome. Sometimes I see things that I just have to stop and appreciate, and I want to share them, but there isn't much to say besides, "Isn't this cool?" Since I have been competing with my friends on Fitbit, I've been making an effort to get lunch downtown so I can do a couple laps, and I've realized how little time I spend in "real" downtown. We have some really amazing buildings.

PS: Have you decided which fish fry you are going to tomorrow?

Cozy Dog Drive In

Dang. I just did a Man Vs Food entry last month, and now you're going to think I copy everything Adam does. Well... if he has been there, I'll probably like it, and there is no question that I love corn dogs. When my friend Val alerted me to the Springfield, IL episode of Man vs Food, I knew we had to make Cozy Dog Drive In one of our stops.