The Confluence

                My dad delights in annoying me- that friendly pestering that as a child made me squeal, and as an adult generally either embarrasses me or makes me laugh.  This, of course, is his prerogative as Dad.  Yesterday, we got each other with the word “confluence.”

                It began with a stop at the Lewis and Clark State Memorial Park which is located in Illinois on the Mississippi River.  It is located near where Lewis and Clark camped before crossing the Mississippi River and continuing up the Missouri River on their exploration of the west.  Mom asked where the Missouri River joined the Mississippi River and I told her that I thought that the confluence was a bit north of where we were.  Dad had to make fun of me for pulling out a polysyllabic vocabulary word.

                After taking some pictures and discussing the merits of fishing the river for catfish, we continued on to an observation tower that I had found a few weeks ago.  As we pulled in, we discovered, much to our amusement, that it is named the Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower. 

                The Confluence Tower is a relatively new monument to the intrepid explorers.  The view from the top of the tower sweeps from Alton, IL in the north to Saint Louis in the south.  However, the real highlight of the view is the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.  From the tower, you can easily see the Missouri flowing into the Mississippi from a unique perspective.

                After we came down from the tower, Mom wanted to take a picture of me with this great fountain in the monument’s courtyard.  It is one of those fountains where the spout is flush with the ground, and the courtyard and fountain form a continuous plane.  From when I first saw it, I had visions of kids running through it in the summer burning off energy built up during a road trip while cooling off.  Mom’s idea of taking a picture of me included me standing a few feet from it and smiling, but I had a different plan.  After giving her instructions to click the shutter as soon as I entered the frame “because I’m only doing this once”, I took the plunge, quite literally. 

                To say I got soaked would be completely accurate.  Mom thinks that I would have won the wet t-shirt contest if there was one and the look of absolute disbelief on Dad’s face was worth having to wear damp jeans for the rest of the day.  Thankfully, I had a fleece jacket in the car, so I changed into a dry top, and we continued on our merry way.

Note: A special thank you to Mom for this week’s pictures.

Lewis and Clark State Memorial Park: http://www.stateforests.com/lewis_and_clark_state_memorial_park_in_illinois.html

Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower: http://www.confluencetower.com/index.cfm

The Ultimate Chocolate Experience

Everyone knows that when you get that craving on a Saturday afternoon for a bit of chocolate, it can easily be satisfied with a Hershey’s bar from the local QuikTrip, when you want to make the stockings a bit upscale at Christmas, you throw in a Lindt milk chocolate Santa, and when you want to spoil your Mom, you bring her a box of Godivas (or sometimes, she spoils you and buys you both chocolate covered strawberries...).

However, here in St. Louis, when you want to do Chocolate right, there is Bissinger’s.

Saturday, a girl friend and I decided to have a bit of dessert before we started on an evening of dancing until our feet hurt.  Having consulted my favorite concierge, Google, I discovered that there is a Bissinger’s shop in the Central West End.  In addition to making some of the smoothest dark chocolate you will ever experience, they have a café that serves a variety of desserts. 

We found a parking spot conveniently located close to the dance club, and walked over to the Bissinger’s.  (If you haven’t spent time in Central West End, let me assure you that this is a fun walk, with lots of people out enjoying the local restaurants and hip shops.)

Stepping into Bissinger’s is akin to walking into the Tiffany’s of chocolate shops.  The counter is lined with delectable looking truffles and boxes of tasty delights.  I’m pretty sure that I could spend more on one pound of chocolate than I spend on groceries for a week.  The host led us to a low table with some very comfortable chairs that we would have killed for a few hours later when our feet were aching from dancing.

Looking over the menu, the decision was extraordinarily difficult to make.  Chocolate Truffle Tart?  White Chocolate Blueberry Bread Pudding?  Decadent Chocolate Brownie?  I couldn’t make a decision!  In the end, my miserly nature kicked in and I ordered a hot chocolate.  How boring is that?  Seriously, I’m confronted with what is quite possibly the most extravagant list of desserts that I could wish for, and I order a hot chocolate?  Ohh, but I don’t regret that decision. 

The hot chocolate came out in white porcelain mugs, topped with a generous helping of real whipped cream and chocolate shavings.  It was frothy and wonderful, so wonderful looking that I whipped out my Iphone to take some pictures and memorize the moment.  And then, I sipped it – smooth, chocolately, with overtones of vanilla, just the right temperature to enjoy. 

Sitting in my comfortable chair, with a cup of hot cocoa goodness, and a good friend to enjoy the evening with, I could only reflect on the joy of life’s simple pleasures.  This was a place where time could stop, and two friends could relax and giggle like little girls pretending to be sophisticates while talking about boys and clothes and books and whatever else girl friends talk about.  It was a with a certain but short lived reluctance that we left Bissinger’s for the rest of our evening’s adventures.

Bissinger’s at Maryland Plaza
Central West End
32 Maryland Plaza
Saint Louis, Missouri 63108

http://www.bissingers.com/

Jazz in the Air, on the Street, and in the Community

                There is a cool scent in the air that only comes when summer turns toward autumn; it is the rich scent of damp earth and newly fallen leaves.  For me, it is a bittersweet fragrance because for, so many years, it was the precursor to months of darkness and social hibernation.  I have to wonder what adventures the winter will bring me here in my new hometown.  For now though, I will enjoy the last of the summer hurrahs.

                Saturday night one of those hurrahs was the Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival.  The festival is held each year in historic Webster Groves, a delightful area filled with restaurants and shops.  A friend and I wandered down to the festival in the middle of the afternoon, and found relatively easy parking back in the neighborhoods.  Since we didn’t see anyone toting around lawn chairs, we left ours in the car, grabbed our cameras and water bottles and headed towards the stages. 

There were two stages set up and rocking all afternoon and into the night.  The mix of music included classic and contemporary jazz, blues, and a bit of rock and roll.  The music was great and the people watching was excellent.  We found a couple of chairs and settled in for an afternoon of entertainment.

Up near the stage, there were couples swinging to the music and random people throughout the crowd would stand up in the middle of songs to dance along.  When the bands took breaks, there was a group of street musicians that wandered through the crowd ensuring that just because the main show wasn’t playing, the music was flowing.

I think that the best surprise of the afternoon was the Webster Groves High School Band.  They were very accomplished and smooth, and a joy to listen to.  Their repertoire was diverse and featured solos by various students throughout.

The food was awesome, and restaurants all through the district were open and busy.  We tried the homemade potato chips from CJMuggs, and they were addictive.  We also made a stop in at Dr. Jazz Ice Cream Parlor for a scoop of heaven on a waffle cone.  (Dr. Jazz is worth a trip to Webster Groves all by itself.)

Sadly, due to us both being a bit under the weather, we decided to leave before the headline acts performed, but this is something I am definitely putting on my calendar for next year.

Resources:

Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival: http://www.oldwebsterjazzfestival.com/cpsiteframepage.lasso?-token.lpuserref=114131.113118

CJ Muggs:  http://www.cjmuggs.com/

Dr. Jazz Ice Cream Parlor:  http://www.drjazzwebstergroves.com/ 

Rollin’ On The River

                What elements combine to ensure a fantastic and memorable weekend?  Good music?  Hanging out with old friends?  Making new friends?  Dancing until your feet hurt and the DJ goes home?  If these sound like the ingredients to a memorable weekend, then we are cruising on the same steamboat to Rollin’ On The River, an annual Swing dancing shindig hosted by the West County Swing Dance Club.

                The weekend kicked off late Thursday night when my best friend from college (whom I hadn’t seen in over ten years) arrived in St. Louis from Arizona wearing a leopard print cowboy hat.  I’d forgotten how tall she is, but I had not forgotten her wry sense of humor and easy going nature.  All of these, by the way, worked in her favor for getting dance partners as the weekend went on.

                Saturday morning, we drug our exhausted bodies out of bed and went to some dance workshops in the morning, took a nap in the afternoon, and then danced the night away.  Our dance partners included people from Chicago, Indiana, Cincinnati, and elsewhere.  Over 500 people from 26 states joined in the fun.  For me, the evening was about getting comfortable dancing with new people and learning to relax into it.  There were so many new people to dance with, and the atmosphere was so much more relaxed, almost euphoric, than any of the regular dances I go to here in town.

                For my “Tall Friend from Arizona”, as she came to be known, I quickly discovered that all of my worries that she might feel left out were completely unfounded.  She was the hit of the dance floor.  Between her stature, excellence as a dancer, and willingness to ask people to dance, she had no lack of partners all weekend long.

                Over the course of the weekend, we made new friends and grew as dancers.  I actually started hearing the music that I dance to, rather than perceiving it as a distraction to the physical feedback I was trying to sense in my partners’ frames.  Some of my regular partners commented that my dancing had smoothed out (although I still bungle their leads every now and then).  Some of the guys from out of town came and found me for second and third and fourth dances, an enormous boost to my confidence on the dance floor.

                My friend rediscovered the joy of dancing in a more social setting than her school offers.  In what may sound like a strange comment, she also discovered that she can unconsciously follow a lead when one of the out of town guys started her off in a Fox Trot; she didn’t realize until halfway through the song that they weren’t doing a swing.  For her, that Fox Trot was the most memorable dance of the weekend.

                After three nights of dancing until our feet hurt and we were too woozy with the late hours to make coherent conversation, we hung up our dancing shoes and started making plans for next year’s Rollin’ On The River. 

Web Resources:

• Rollin' On the River: http://www.wcsdc.com/ROTRPage.html
• Sponsored by the West County Swing Dance Club: http://www.wcsdc.com/
• Sanctioned by the American Bop Association: http://www.americanbopassociation.com/
• A Shameless Plug for my Club, Southside Imperial Swing Dance Club: http://www.southsidedance.org/