Meet Me In St. Louis - Part One

They say life is what happens when you make other plans, and the older I get, the more I believe it.

For the holiday weekend, I had spent a good amount of time planning a weekend getaway for Justin and myself, the first of ours that wouldn't be given over to family gatherings and obligations. I was inspired by a Groupon I'd spotted for a the Moonrise Hotel, a new boutique hotel in St. Louis that was under construction while I was in college, and about which I had remained curious. The online deal would put it in the realm of affordability, so I floated the idea with Justin, who was amenable because he'd somehow never managed to travel to St. Louis, despite traveling extensively with his family and on his own in the past. In the first complication of many to face this journey, the weekend-rate Groupons sold out before we could secure them, so we were only able to get one for a Sunday night. For the rest of our journey we decided to stay at the Clayton Sheraton, which would be cheaper than staying at the Moonrise for the other two nights, sans-Groupon. At least this way we'd get to check out the new, nicer hotel for at least one night, and still get in a decently long vacation.

The next challenge to face us arose on Tuesday, when it became abundantly clear that the cold I feared was coming on for most of last week that had failed to materialize was going to make itself known after all. I ended up taking Wednesday off of work in order to stay home and get rest, hoping that if I took excellent care of myself all week that I'd be in the clear by the time our departure rolled around today. However, Thursday saw very little improvement, and by this morning, I was even more miserable. Forgoing our original plan to be on the road to St. Louis by 9:00 a.m., I seized the earliest available appointment at my doctor's office at 11:15, where I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and bronchitis, and duly given a course of antibiotics. We ended up leaving three and half hours later than planned, but I think it was better than suffering through the weekend un-medicated.

By the time we finally got into town, it was too late to do any of the sightseeing that I had on the agenda for the afternoon, and as it turned out, Justin was feeling under the weather as well, though his was more of an adverse reaction to the road food we'd consumed on the way down. We both ended up feeling so poorly that we couldn't even make it out of the hotel to have dinner; our first night of vacation was officially a bust. Still, at least we were together, and things could really only get better from there...