Return from St. Louis

My cousin Jeff and I spent this past weekend in St. Louis, celebrating our friend Greg's birthday. It was great to get away for a few days, and it's always a hard crash coming back to reality for me. That reality was made apparent immediately when I went to pick up my car from my mom's house. I couldn't keep it started, and when I finally did get it started, I floored it all the way home..."floored it" to 25 mph.

I just had work done on it last week, hoping it would solve this problem, and perhaps it did. I had it looked at again on Monday, and it has been driving fine other than Sunday night's issues. Anyway, the trip...

I knew Jeff was excited because our departure time kept moving up. We had originally planned to leave Friday morning, but when we both realized our schedules were free Thursday, we planned to leave Thursday afternoon. We almost had to postpone to Friday morning again, when Greg and his family (our hosts, as usual) asked that we not come down Thursday, as they needed the extra day to prepare, among other things.

They've always treated me so well that I had no problem with this concession, but Jeff and I both desperately wanted to leave Thursday. So he contacted his mom that also lives in the St. Louis area and made arrangements to stay with her Thursday night.

Thursday afternoon's departure time moved up to noon. Then 11 a.m. Then Jeff told me we'd meet at my mom's at 9:45 a.m. Great!

He rang my doorbell at 8:45 a.m. and said "let's get the fuck outta here!"

We dropped off my car, picked up our Kia Soul rental, dropped off his car, and hit the road. The Iowa half of our drive was a wet one, as rain fell most of the morning, but the further south we got, the rain gave way, leaving us with gloomy clouds and wind.

We got into Wright City, met up with Jeff's sister Mary, relaxed, and then eventually went to dinner with Jeff's mom at the Ameristar Casino buffet. Jeff's mom paid, but we ate like we stole it, shoveling pizza, Chinese, pasta, catfish, dinner rolls, and ice cream down our gullets.

We watched part of the Cardinals game, but I crashed out pretty early...9 or 10 p.m. as I was still fighting a nasty sore throat.

On Friday, we had an afternoon to kill before Greg and his family got home from work. Jeff told me he'd never been to a Dave & Buster's, so we made that our lunch stop. He had a Philly cheese steak, I had chicken strips. We wasted some money in the arcade and had some fun, then decided to head into downtown St. Louis.

We checked out the Arch and walked nearly all the way around Busch Stadium, then poked around random streets here and there with no goal or destination in mind. We also passed by a Tums factory, which smelled delicious, lol.

It was after 4 p.m. and we were tired of walking, so we crossed over into Illinois and went to our other friend Patrick's video game store to see him and Daniel, until shortly after 6 p.m. when Greg finally got home from work.

Myself, Jeff, Greg, Stephanie, and Pat hit up Steak'n'Shake for dinner, gave our waitress hell, and then headed over to the SIUE campus to play pool and air hockey on the cheap.

Saturday morning, we ate breakfast at a local restaurant, ran into another friend of ours Nathan, and then headed for Six Flags. Saturday was Greg's 23rd birthday and he wanted to celebrate it at Fright Fest, riding roller coasters, and I'm not one to turn down rolly coastas!

But man, do I have a tiny bladder. It's my own fault for drinking an orange juice, a full glass of water, a Mountain Dew, and an Amp...but as we sat in line to get into the parking lot, I was nearly dying!

We hit up the Mr. Freeze coaster first (after a security line and a pair of bathroom breaks...yes, a pair), because it had been closed down on my July visit. It was awesome! YouTube it, because I can't do it justice...but it shoots you out backwards at 70-something mph, upside-down, corkscrews, and then takes you straight up into the air probably a couple hundred feet, until it reaches a near-stop. You're looking straight down! The only thing keeping you from, ya know, dying is a lap bar!

Then it takes off again at 70+ mph, dropping you straight down and back through the loops and corkscrews, forward this time, until you return to base. Wow!

The first couple of rides we hit had short-ish lines, but as we got deeper into the day, the lines were crazy long. 30 minute waits. Last couple we did were hour-long waits. I hate standing in lines! I have bad feet, and all the walking is hard enough as it is, but standing around really takes it out of me. I would have been happy to leave much earlier than we did, but stuck it out, because the rides themselves were awesome!

Jeff, Steph, and myself rode the Superman ride, which takes you up 200+ feet, where you sit for awhile in anticipation. Then your seats drop in a freefall back to Earth. Pretty spectacular rush!

We hit up a couple of the wooden coasters, as well as The Batman, and Mr. Freeze one last time. By the time we rode both of those, it was pitch black outside, and that really intensified the thrills!

We ate Jack in the Box after returning to Greg's...then we had Jack in the Box for breakfast, lol. Sunday was spent lounging around Greg's man cave, because we were all beat the hell up from the day before. We watched the Rams/Packers game and some other football, but then it was time to go. Jeff and I left around 4 p.m., taking our time on the way back home.

As I said at the beginning, coming back to reality is dreadful for me. I know most people hate returning from vacation, but it takes a harder toll on me, I feel. After I came home in July, I dipped into a pretty deep depression and spent several weeks drinking, smoking, and hating a lot of things about me and my life.

This time, the fall wasn't as hard or debilitating, but I still feel some of the same things. I'm not happy at my job, I'm not happy being single, I'm not happy being away from my friends. I've been giving some thought to moving to St. Louis next summer, but part of me doesn't think that's the right move either.

It'd be great to see my friends more often, don't get me wrong. But being there would become my new normal, and at some point, I would still be facing the same ruts I face here, now. Where do I work? Do I stay in television? What if I end up working weekends still? That pretty much defeats any chance I have of hanging out with my friends, who are Monday through Friday-types.

I have a lot to think about, but most of the time, I put it off for the Internet, TV shows...or worse, booze. I need to stop avoiding my future and start assembling it, to look however I imagine it. But finding a direction is hard, when you don't quite have a destination in mind yet.

I want the bliss that vacation brings. One of my friends commented on a picture from this weekend, saying I looked really happy. I want that captured moment to last forever. I know that's not realistic, because bad things happen and struggles happen and real life happens. But I want to find a way to take that happiness and bliss and apply it to the rest of life. So the bad things, the struggles, and the real life can become a little more bearable. :)