FinalCut

I grew up in a military family and served in the Army but it still took me until I was 30 to visit the Mall. It was pretty chilling to visit the heart of our nations goverment, to be surrounded by all of the symbols – it really gave me the chills.

It was well worth the trip. We were there over Memorial Day weekend 2002 so the crowds were pretty big; but that just made it even cooler.

I was just finishing Basic Training at Ft Leonard Wood Mo. and had to spend about 20 hours in St. Louis before I flew home. We went to Busch Stadium (the old one) and then to a cool night club on the river “Mississippi Nights”

The people in St. Louis were really cool to us and generally treated us very well (we were in our Dress Uniforms). It is one of the few cities I have visited where I would consider moving to based on a short visit.

We also travelled to East St Louis thanks to our Cabbie whom we asked to take us somewhere fun.

Overall we had fun everywhere we went in St Louis.

I’ve been to SC a few times. 2 times to visit my in-laws when they were at their Condo in Hilton Head. While HH is a decent place, I suppose, I thought it was pretty boring. The Golf is supposed to be really good there but I couldn’t afford it.

My wife and I went to Charleston for one of our Anniversary’s. We stayed at a BnB that was way too expensive considering it was slowly falling into a state of disrepair. However the BnB was still neat because it was a very old house and had a cool courtyard in the middle. We were pretty close to the main historic area of Charleston (typical tourist site). It is also the wealthy portion of Charleston (and predominately white).

The majority of Charleston seemed to be depressingly mired in poverty. The monetary divide there is as stark as I have seen it anywhere. There is a street that runs E-W that was a clear delimiter between the haves and the have-nots. It was sad. We didn’t really enjoy the trip as much as we would have hoped – and the increidble depths of poverty made it unlikely that we will return.