St. Louis

Renee speaking:

I know I should be excited that we've made it to St. Louis, but it's been a rough couple days. It's harder to wake up by the time we want to, and we're moving at a much slower pace, losing a couple miles a day.

I have a blister on my right heel that keeps reopening every time it gets close to healing.  We need new shoes.  

(Shannon says we brought two pairs.)

More new shoes.

 St. Louis was big.  Actually too big.  I didn't like it.  It's noisy, dirty, I mean, it's like when you blow your nose - it's like you're blowing nasty blackness.  

My rib from feeling like I got hit by an eighteen wheeler feels a little better, but I'm considering purchasing a rolly backpack by the next city.  I don't care if I look stupid.  I will have a rolly backpack all the way to LA.  I might lose it right outside of LA, but I will have it.  I'll get rid of it before LA so no one has to see me with it so I don't look like a nerd. 

If you haven't learned by now, there's no filter from what I think to what is said or written for other people to read/hear.  I think Mariel's getting tired of me.  I look over sometimes and she's glaring.  Like, I know she does this regularly but it seems every time I look over, she's glaring at me - and I really think she may kill me in my sleep.  I can't help it that I have to set three alarms in order to wake up in the morning.  I can't wake up if I set any less.  I feel like even though I see Shannon, every day we're becoming more distant.  We once had meaningful conversations and now it's turned into just weird shit.  All we say is Eener, and so many more weird thinks I can't think of right now.  

My lips are chapped from licking.  We forgot the Gentleman Tips book that we bought in Peoria.  The weather has been halfway nice... I hear it's still raining in Michigan.  It sucks for them... and I don't really care because I'm not there.  But we are exhausted and I know we still have a long ways to go.  

Let me tell you, they party hard in St. Louis.  We accidentally walked through a family reunion, considering we were cutting across things... Turns out, everyone was so drunk that they didn't even recognize we weren't members of their family.  

If you were wondering why there was a family reunion going on, apparently it's a hot commodity in St. Louis.  They have a whole website for it:

St. Louis Reunions

We hung out for a while because they had a lot of food (which we were lacking.)  They had everything I had ever wanted.  By the way, this is Cotton's family reunion.  

 

They had barbeque chicken, and deviled eggs and green bean casserole, which was kind of strange because they put bacon in it ... not a big fan of the bacon in the green been casserole.  And corn on the cob, they even buttered it for me - they're so nice.  

 

Things got a little crazier though as the night progressed.  Apparently cousin Greg asked Mariel to take some family shots and considering we didn't want our cover to be blown as the family reunion crashers - we had Mariel take these shots.  She didn't ask what was in them, she just closed her eyes and took them like a champ.  Everything was fun and games, until after awhile she took one that made her the angriest person in the world.  So her and cousin Greg are having a good time, and there's a dispute over how to say some phrase in German since Mariel's on this German kick.  I don't remember what it was but I just remember that Mariel got ugly fast and we had to leave immediately because she started making a scene.  She flipped a table, kind of hulked out. 

Kinda like this:

Anyways - we didn't happen to record or get any pictures throughout this entire incident but when we got her away from everything we managed to calm her down and this is her breaking down in the stairwell of some building in St. Louis. 

Hopefully tomorrow is better. 

What I've learned this time, or at least the last couple of days, is that sometimes your wilderness survival guide is not prepared for the actual wilderness.  

Sidenote to Shannon: We're on our own.

So now we need to sleep and one of us will update in one to a few days or something.  

Word.  

5. When in doubt, don't try to play Redneck Horseshoes