Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

As a friend said this past weekend, my travels came out a bit like the old movie - but without the weather and travel-partner issues.

I flew to St. Louis for the Illinois State Bar Association Annual Meeting.  These are rarely held in Illinois, primarily (I was told long ago) because there is no resort-type location that will handle a meeting of our size and type.  We need lots of small meeting rooms, not much catering, and things for families to do.  In the past the meetings were mostly at one of two resorts in southern Wisconsin, with an occasional trip to St. Louis, the last of which was during some massive flooding so many of the planned events didn't occur, and some people had trouble getting to the meetings entirely.

This time, the weather was perfect most of the weekend.  I flew into Lambert Field (STL) and went to the hotel, which happily had a room available even though it was still morning.  

View from the room after I said I didn't want to 
pay extra for a view of The Arch.

So I was able to settle in and get some work done before heading to the first meeting.  Then back to the room to work until the welcome reception, where I met a friend/colleague and we headed over to Busch Stadium, just a short walk away, and watched the Cardinals lose (by a single run) to the Rockies.

It was Star Wars Night so I wore a Baseball Wars shirt (my companion wore Stan Musial) and we got commemorative bobbleheads.

  

The next day I had two meetings, and mostly ate snacks due to scheduling.  Originally I was going to catch the airport-to-Columbia shuttle that afternoon, but by the time I figured out enough of my schedule to buy the ticket all the afternoon seats were sold out.  What to do?  Alternative transportation!  I knew there was likely to be an Amtrak station in the downtown area, and happily there was a train at just the right time.  So I decamped from hotel to station in time for a couple calls (hurrah for headsets), made it onto the train, and was met in time for supper instead of arriving around midnight.

Saturday was a quiet, visiting with friends, check out the Farmers' Market (I bought garlic scapes and fennel and cheese, and would have purchased much more if I were not flying home the next day - or if I'd brought bigger luggage), and otherwise a much more relaxed day than I usually experience.  On Sunday it was time for the 'automobiles' part of the travel - it turned out enough people were going from Columbia to the airport at that time that they used a long bus.

We made a stop to pick up more passengers.

At the airport friends met me, we had lunch, I enjoyed an unofficial tour of a Masonic Lodge, then back to the airport where I checked out the current art exhibits and had enough time to attend my weekly online fiber arts group before boarding the flight home.