188 days until the Festival of Nations in St. Louis.
Yup, you heard right -- that's St. Louis, Missouri -- smack-dab-in-the-middle-of-fly-over-country-USA.
MoJen and I have decided to plan a GTG focused on the festival.
We're extended the invitation for all to join us. Come one-come all.

The weekend of August 29 & 30, 2009 ... starting FRIDAY August 28th!

Friday night August 28th: group dinner (@ restaurant)
Saturday August 29th: 10AM, gather at Tower Grove Park for the day.
Saturday night: Party at Dan & Deborah's house.
Sunday, either back to the Festival or perhaps something else?

Here are some links to check out so you can decide if you're interested:

http://www.iistl.org/festival.php

http://www.explorestlouis.com/.../visitorServices.asp

If your interested post here. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Either Jen or I will answer.

* edited for title date change *

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Colleen,

Deborah, I'm a definite maybe, potentially with my husband and daughter, depending on airfares. Kelly would love to see St. Louis.

What a wonderful idea, especially after reading your blog post about this festival.

Kathy

I'm a definite maybe too! If Sammi goes to camp, then I'll be solo (or maybe with Chris), if Sammi doesn't then maybe she'll accompany me. Becky won't be attending though.

Now, to keep track of airfares!!!

Oh Deb....if my mom hears this...she will bug me to come to St. Louis ...i usually boycott St. louis in the summer....hate the humidity! but i just might make an exception. Have to see how our work schedule comes along.

Stephanie dogma to Rosco and Zoey

Flint River Ranch Dog Food

Woohoo...two MODs right off the bat.

Come on, Steph. Take one for the team. The humidity won't kill you for just one little weekend.

Just so everyone understands, this is going to be a very casual GTG. It's about hanging out together at the Festival.

With all there is to do in the Summertime in St. Louis, we don't plan to program this thing.

People can come for the amount of days that works for them.

Jen and I will only plan three things for which we will be asking people to let us know for sure if they want to participate:

Friday night casual party at my house.
Saturday at the Festival.
Saturday night dinner.

Other than that, what we'd really love to do is provide you with information about the things to see and do in St. Louis and let you plan your time according to your own tastes.

Deborah-Can you have the mods go back and change your title to this thread? It shows the date as Aug. 9, not the 29th. (See, I am putting the dates on my calendar.)

If American Airlines would just have an August seat sale (hah, but you never know), it's just a few hours non-stop to SL - sounds like a really fun and casual weekend.

I think I'll be watching, too.

Sammi told me this morning she's going to camp, so I think I can definitely go!! I'll be watching the fares now and will post as soon as I book something.

Awesome Kim!!! Cannot wait to see you

Great, I'll probably go.

Yeah, Andrew. Can't believe I might actually finally meet you.

I hope we have some Missouri based lurkers who decide to join us, too!

Kim, if Sammy is at camp, you and Chris can come early and do a little "memory laning".

I would, if I could Sounds like a fantastic time!

Leslie

Oh come on Leslie

Deborah, I may just do that. Chris will probably play by ear b/c if he's on the road at that point in time, he'll just fly in from whatever location he's at.

Hey - any chance of maybe doing a picnic at Mt. Pleasant Winery on Sunday? They still there? Or in Forest Park? Oh, and the restaurants I miss....and Soulard...oh I may definitely have to come out early.

Jen, It looks like we need to start posting info about St. Louis area attractions, don't we?

Pick your favorites and post them with a link one at a time. I'll do the same.

Kim wants to visit Mt. Pleasant. I think we need to introduce her to some she isn't familiar with yet. Like Crown Valley in Ste. Gen.

Jen, you pick two restaurants for our Sat. night dinner and I'll pick two. Then we will post a survey with all four and their web links. We'll let people vote on the one they want. Sound good?

Sounds great! I will work on this tomorrow

Have a great weekend!

Okay - spoke to Chris last night; he's in!

Hi everyone-

Posting a few fun ideas for activities in STL:

Please leave your thoughts

http://www.anheuser-busch.com/

Soulard Market -- Oldest farmers market West of the Mississippi.

http://www.soulardmarket.com/

Villa Antonio winery--

http://villaantoniowinery.com/home_page.html

One more

http://www.augustawinery.com/

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, see you in St. Louis!


Jen

Also consider art locations:

St. Louis Art Museum: www.slam.org

Two small spaces close to one another:
Contemporary Art Museum: http://www.contemporarystl.org/
Pulitzer Foundation: http://www.pulitzerarts.org/
The latter including a map of non-profit art locations.

Just checked and the Cardinals are in town that weekend. I may come in early and brave the mid-day heat for the Thursday afternoon game. I'll let you all know if I do, in case anyone is interested in joining me.

All you gardeners should not miss the Missouri Botanical Garden. It's one of the best in the world and, if i'm not mistaken, it's right next to Tower Park. Isn't it guys?

Kathy

OOOps, no it's not. My mistake! However, it's a wonderful garden!

Kathy

Kathy, by St. Louis standards, yes, it is absolutely "right next to" Tower Grove Park. You were right the first time! :D http://www.mobot.com
View Larger Map Map of TG Park and Bot. Gard Sorry about all the code. I couldn't figure out how to make the map show up without it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kim,

Kim-

I'm interested in the Cardinal's game too

(Chris too )

Jen

I guess I need to get moving and top this thread so we can begin discussing again.

I'm going to start a "Who might come?" thread. If you think you are interested, post your name there. Then one of the MODs can update changes on the first entry.

Jen and I have each picked two nice restaurants as options for Saturday night dinner. We decided that since we will have spent the day exploring some unusual food cultures, we would keep our restaurant selections to those that are so mainstream in St. Louis that there won't be booths at the festival. So, you know what that means? Italian, Italian, Italian.

I'm going to post a survey with a link to the websites of each restaurant. Once you are pretty sure you will be coming, you can vote for your choice.

I thought I'd top this original thread so people who are wondering why we are talking about meeting in STL will see the reason.

We want to visit our son's family in KC this summer. We'll try to coordinate our visit so we can also attend the GTG.

After food at the festival, I doubt that we will be eating a very big dinner on Sat.

Charity and Bill

Charity brings up a really good point that I hadn't considered.
Is there interested in flipping the evening activities for Fri & Sat?
We could have a gathering dinner at the restaurant of choice on Friday night and a casual "hanging-out" evening at our house on Saturday night.
Or would everyone prefer to keep the original order?

At first glance, going to the restaurant Friday looks good. The possible downside is that it's a little more moving around, depending where most people are staying.

With at least three threads open, I'm not sure if this is the place to put it, but if we go to LoRusso's, which is the favorite now, it gives frequent flyer miles on Fridays. That could change by the time we go. The Rewards Network dining programs are good for those who have enough occasion to dine at participating restaurants; if many people take part in the program, it would be good to make sure they offer separate checks. If others aren't interested, it would be a windfall for me to put it all on my credit card (not quite ready to say I'm paying for everyone I'd ask for reimbursement).

Dinner out on Friday makes sense, and then hanging out at your home on Sat after the festival sounds good!

I just hope we can stand the heat and humidity in St Louis and KC in August!

Charity

Friday works for us as well

The switch is cool with us too!

Southwest Airlines' schedule for these dates opened this morning. It may get other airlines to lower their fares. Although it's a driveable trip for me, for various reasons including the age of my car I like to fly from Kansas City and rent a car. I'm used to the fare being no more than $49 each way. From the schedule opening, with it being the start of the school year, the fare is $78, which gives me pause about flying.

For a trip from LAX Aug. 27-30, there's a total fare of $306 on flights with stops or changes. It may get the fare lower on airlines with non-stops. There's a fare of $260 on AirTran connecting through Atlanta, odd geographically. If any fare booked on Southwest goes down, you can rebook at the lower fare without a change fee and have the difference for future travel.

Should the subject line reflect that the gathering starts the 28th?

Andrew, Dan and I have geriatric cars. So we don't drive them to far out of the city.
When we drive to KC (frequently because one of our daughters lives there) we rent from our local Enterprise. We usually get cars for under $20 a day with unlimited miles.
Have you thought of doing that?

And, Yes, I think we need to consolidate these threads in some way and change the date to the 28th. But, I'm not a MOD so we'll need to wait to for one of them to see this.

GTG dates updated!

We can't consolidate threads without losing conversation flow.

Let us know if you want a thread closed, with link to active thread(s) -- click on the alert button or send an email/PM to a mod.

I for one am hoping to see some airfare movement. Currently AA, with whom I do business for the miles, has a $382 rt fare, nonstop - for a shortish weekend I am really hoping for the nonstop, but really hoping the fares come down.

Switching dinner out from Saturday to Friday is fine with us.

I'm not likely to use Enterprise, given my experience with their insurance pressure. I potentially have a $40 discount coupon with them, but I think they'd wind up making me pay $60 for insurance that others wouldn't. I have a quote from Hertz Local Edition in St. Joe, my car will probably be o.k., and the Southwest fare has gone down to $69 each way, so I have several options.

Whoo-hoo! AA just gave me a fare deal of $100 less per ticket for non-stop flights to STL.

We are booked! Arriving in St. Louis Friday around 2 and leaving on the 7:30 flight on Sunday evening. Now to book a hotel.

I'm very excited for my year of some domestic travel, leaving CA, yay.

Great news Marcia! So happy that you are coming to my town.

I'll probably book our tickets within the next week. Planning on arriving Thursday morning, departing either late Sunday (if there is such a flight) or early Monday.

Deborah, how hard is it getting Cardinals tickets?

Kim,

Doodling around on the Cardinal's website here, it looks like tickets are available for that day, depending on how many and what cost. I only popped in a few figures, like 8, I think. Since our flight is not until 7:30 Sunday evening, we are certainly up for a day game at Busch Stadium.

If we can get a quick count on everyone who wants to go to a game, I'll see what I can do to get us tickets.
Why don't you guys take a looke at the seat map on this page and tell me where you'd like to sit. http://purchase.tickets.com/bu...8/30/wasmlb-slnmlb-1

I'm willing to go up to the $65 a seat (but will go cheaper - trust me, you should see my seats at Yankee stadium). I only ask, no bleachers b/c I need a back.

I've started a separate discussion on this in the hopes of getting a head count.

That's good Kim. I'm going to that thread to post some comments.

So here's an update:

For those who arrive on Thurs. and want to go with me on Fri.: I'll be leading an early morning shopping expedition to Soulard Market (the oldest farmer's market west of the Mississippi); followed by a stop at Penze's Spices. Lunch will be an unhealthy concrete at Ted Drewes; and then we will take an afternoon field trip to Global Foods. (since this is my usual weekend shopping habit, I'd be doing this even if you weren't here. Grin.)

We will begin our GTG on Friday evening with a dinner at LoRusso's.

Saturday is devoted to attending the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park.

Saturday evening is a casual dinner at our house.

Sunday afternoon is baseball in the best baseball town in the country watching the best baseball team in the country beat whatever insignificant team they happen to be playing.

Jen, Kim? Do you have any additions or comments to make.