Casino Camping

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2012 trip so far: prairie dog, bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, llama, white tail deer, elk, grizzly, coyote, badger, Uinta ground squirrel, black bear, yellow-bellied marmot, wolf, bullsnake, moose, wild turkey

*Birds we’ve seen on our 2012 trip so far: Western meadowlark, magpie, wild turkey, killdeer, osprey, red-naped sapsucker, sandhill crane, bald eagle, mountain bluebird

*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2012 trip so far: 3

*State Parks visited on 2012 trip so far: 1

[Click on any photo to enlarge for better viewing.]

We arrived in St. Louis with plans to stay only about a week or so.  As you know we usually stay at the KOA in Eureka just south of the city limits, but since we weren’t going to stay a month and the daily cost was too high, we opted to park in the Harrah’s Casino parking lot in Earth City just west of the city limits.  The far lot in the back is where buses and semis park, and we had stayed there a couple nights in the past.

Though we didn’t plan to stay in town long, we made plans with a few people and Russ even fit in a couple rounds of golf.  Most of our time was spent up in north county but we also made a couple trips to the south county area.

 

  One of those trips south was to see Russ’ brother and his wife.  Ron and Jackie live in the city of Wentzville, but it’s a nice drive and we made plans to visit for a few hours.  Jackie has an incredible flower garden on the

     farm across from their house, and though the roses were fading, her mums were in full bloom. An added bonus to this trip was that their son, Ronnie, and his wife, Kim, were planning to be there, too, and we hadn’t sent them in a few years.  We had a great visit, and it was just a shame we couldn’t stay longer.

Shortly after we arrived in town we learned that our friend, Patty, would be having major surgery, and since their house was only about 15 min. from us, we offered to help out in any way we could.  We surprised Steve the day of surgery and sat with him at the hospital for 6 hours…we’re sure it made the time go by faster.  All turned out great, and she was doing so well that she went home within a couple of days!
 

It was the perfect time to be in St. Louis because Cardinals fever was high throughout the city.  The defending World Champions had not been counted to do much this season what with all the personnel changes and injuries, but true to form, they constantly battled back.  Our team had clinched a wild card slot into the post season,

 and beat Atlanta to advance to the NL Division Series, and then miraculously beat Washington to advance to the NL Championship Series. However, that’s where the dream ended. San Francisco won out and advanced to the World Series.  We didn’t attend any games in person but watched every single one on TV either at our place or a friend’s.

Of course staying up in the north end of town put us closer to one of our favorite places, Lombardo’s Restaurant (Lombardo’s), and we made sure to go on a day when Angelo and Carmen were both working.  We were able to visit a couple of times and during one of those stops, Carmen asked if we’d like a couple tickets to Sunday’s Rams game.  Of course we said yes!

They were scheduled to play the Green Bay Packers, and we arrived early to soak in some of the tailgating atmosphere. There were lots of Packers fans with many wearing their signature “cheeseheads”, but one Rams fan made sure everyone knew how he felt about the rivalry…what a hoot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Inside we found our seats in the endzone only 7 rows from the field, and soon Carmen, his wife, their daughter, and her son joined us.  Inside the dome sound is magnified, and we could see there were quite a number of Packers fans, but it wasn’t until their team

     scored their first points that we realized just how many.  The sound was so loud you would have thought we were in Green Bay!  I always think it’s fun to attend these games in person but it would have been better had the Rams won…they lost 30 – 20.

While in town I got together with high school friends a couple of times, whether at somebody’s house, the bowling alley, shopping, or a restaurant.  Just fun to get together.  On one occasion, Gloria and I even made plans to wear the matching Yellowstone t-shirts she

      bought us when she and her husband visited.  Think
anyone mistook us for twins??  On another day we visited her mom at her new apartment and had a nice visit.

Seems our stay kept getting extended a little longer for one reason or another.  The last thing that extended it was when our fridge stopped working!  Fortunately with Steve and Patty only living 15 min. away we borrowed a cooler from them and put a bunch of other stuff in their spare refrigerator/freezer.  Russ found a place not far away to take the RV, and it took Kevin at Rec Tec (http://www.rectecinc.net/) only a couple of minutes to discover it was a blown cooling unit.  There had been a recall on the Norcold refrigerators, but he was fairly certain this would not be covered.  We returned to our casino home, and Russ called Norcold to see what they would say. Of course, the initial answer was no, so he went round with them.  They gave him another number to call and was told once the claim was filed, it could take 4 – 6 weeks before we’d have an answer as to whether or not it would be covered. Good grief!  In the meantime, while Russ did a lot of internet research, Kevin did some checking for us and found it would cost about $2,500 for a replacement unit plus labor (about $100/hr), or a whole new fridge for about $4,000 plus labor (labor would take about 8 hours…yikes!)  For those who don’t know RVs, the reason for the high costs is because the fridge needs to be able to run on electric, battery, or propane (for when you have no hookups like in the casino lot).  This little setback drastically altered our plans as we decided it was best that we head south to FL right away instead of going east because whether or not it was covered under the recall, there were more options available in Orlando.  We bought a 70 qt. cooler, stocked it with the bare necessities, returned Steve and Patty's cooler, and left the remainder of our groceries with them for their use.

They say everything happens for a reason, and there were obviously a couple reasons why our usual Eureka campsite didn’t work out this trip putting us closer to where we needed to be.  Amazingly nobody from the casino bothered us during the 3-1/2 weeks we camped in their lot, and part of the reason may have been because they had recently been sold and were in the middle of changing over from Harrah’s to Hollywood.  We shared meals and good times with several friends, and though we may not have seen everyone we would have liked, all in all it was a great visit.