Spent the morning in Prohibition

[cornerofmadness]

This was the first morning here that I was awoken by noise, thunder I think at 6 AM and I did fall back to sleep only to wake up an hour later when it sounded like a drawer slammed in my room. It didn't of course and I'm at the end of the hall so not sure where it came from.

Even waking up early I was late getting out of here in the pouring rain which wasn't fun especially since there was no time for breakfast. Worse I forgot my list of addresses in the hotel but luckily GPS can also find things by name. I did get to Union Station in time and they had the same coffee shop chain as here so I did get breakfast after all.

The Gangster Tour wasn't as expected. In spite of all my worry I was the first person on the bus. The driver and the tour guide were both in 1920s period dress (okay for men that's just a suit (pinstripe) and fedoras. It was a mix of the guide's patter/info dumps and a tv screen with a news reporter, Johnny Holiday's (our guide) brother or his girlfriend so it looked interactive. Really nice info about John Lazia and Tom Pendergast the underworld crime boss and the political boss respectfully. Pendergast apparently never found a thing he couldn't turn into graft (like literally everything his cement business was involved in) and yet oddly he was also a friend of Harry Truman even after his corruption (Pendergast's) was exposed. Learned a ton about various buildings (including places Al Capone partied and where Pretty Boy Floyd was in theory involved in a massacre outside the Union Station. It was almost a 2 hour tour so worth the money.

After lunch in the Union I headed to the Steamboat Arabia museum (which is closing down at the end of the year) but it is in some artist market district with nothing but food traffic and zero parking other than on street which was never going to happen. After circling around for several minute (and thinking I could try tomorrow morning) I gave up and said fine, WWI memorial museum it is...right back at Union Station but up the hill.

SO...every road to the parking garage was closed. After circling it three times I gave up and since it was still raining off and on I decided no zoo. I went back to the Nelson Atkins art museum. I could have gone to the Kemper Modern art museum but I think it was 20$ and I am not a huge art fan.

Revisiting the other museum is good call. Found a whole wing I missed the first time. Found my hotel mate there too. I rode up in the elevator yesterday with a lady who liked my Huskerdust shirt. Found her again at the Red Lotus Asian restaurant (in the casino) and found her again at the museum. Told mom watch me see her again tonight.

And I go to the sports bar at the casino and who's there, my hotel mate sitting with an African American woman at the 6 seater table, the only thing open in the place. She said sit with us. She's Marta (Mexican American from CA) and Melinda is her table mate, retired today. They were also happy to see me because the two trainee waitresses kept ignoring them but responded to me. On our way out, Marta said she wondered if there was a racial component in addition to the two waitresses being new to the job and bad at it and got better when I showed up. Yeah...probably

Slot machines gobbled my money and I came back and after fighting for days to get my room to cool off, now it finally is (and almost too cold) and looking outside the street lights look like shower heads its raining so hard. Figures because I'm driving towards home tomorrow. And ooooo that was big lightning. Gonna be a fun night