Mardi Gras & Monster Trucks

Today was the Mardis Gras parade & party in Soulard, which is the historic district south of downtown St Louis. It was the first time that I have really experienced traffic congestion in the city with it taking almost as long to get off the highway & into the car park as it did to drive from Fenton to St Louis.

I met up with Phil, Steve, & Sally & her friends at Phil & Steve's appartment. After waiting about half an hour for a shuttle bus we got a taxi to Soulard. The party was in full swing but it wasn't that busy as most people were watching the parade, which is where we headed after buying Hurricanes. These are a bright red, fruit flavoured cocktails with Southern Comfort. As we all bought a 32oz drink they were served in a bucket (which was actually quite good at it made them easy to carry).

The place was absolutely rammed with people after the parade had finished. In the meantime, we had met up with Brad & Todd from work & after standing chatting for about 2 hours we went to watch the drag racing, but being Mardi Gras this was drag queen racing. As I was stood in the crowd I was given a length of bunting to hold on to. This was the edge of the race course & so I was in a prime location to watch the race. All the men were wearing high heels, some of them dressed up, others not. One person that stood out was a six foot four bloke dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, complete with red sparkly platform shoes! Anyway, the race was over pretty quickly, but one of the contestants decided to eat tarmac right in front of me - he slid along the road for a good few feet (ouch) before getting up & finishing 3rd.

We walked back to downtown St Louis & had some Mexican food at the Downtown Cantina, before I left Phil, Steve, Sally & Brad in Jack Patrick's as I was meeting up with Vish from work to go & watch the Monster Jam moster truck racing at the Edward Jones Dome.

This was a sell-out event & our seats weren't even next to each other, but it was a still great night. These trucks are completely mental, being fully spaceframed & running 'top fuel' style supercharged V8 engines pushing out 1500+ horsepower on open headers (earplugs are a good idea as they are slightly more than noisy in the enclosed stadium).

All the trucks were introduced & the first part of the event comprised a time trial to decide race order. Then the racing commenced on a knockout basis. In between this there was the second heat of a quad bike race between St Louis & Seattle.

Before the main interval there was a stunt show where an ex-Florida police car was barrel rolled off a ramp into a row of cars. After the break there was a motorcross freestyle competition & then the monster trucks returned with their freestyle competition. Each truck has 1 minute 30 seconds to do as many stunts as possible arounf the arena. All the drivers really go for it with about half the trucks breaking upon impact from the huge jumps that they do, or ending up on their roof after being rolled (which the crowd loves!).

Surprise, surprise!

Last week was all about surprises. I booked a flight home at the last minute & didn't tell Cheryl or Beth! My Dad picked me up at Gatwick Airport after a reasonably short flight home (this time via Charlotte), & as Beth was staying at my Mum & Dad's house she thought it was her Grandad (my Dad) at the front door!

After this surprise, we just had to wait for Cheryl to turn up. I hid in the kitchen with Beth & when Cheryl opened the door, it was almost like I wasn't there. I think she was looking towards the floor expecting to see Beth & not me standing there. It was a bit surreal (Cheryl's words). Had a good week spending time with Cheryl & Beth, doing some DIY to the house, & meeting up with friends.

Phil & Steve's party

Phil & Steve had their house (flat) warming party today. Started at lunchtime, but I had to come back to my house first to wait for the water meter to be read so I didn't get there until about 6:00pm. They had some gifts from the people at work & I bought them a women of the WWF (wrestling) calendar - seemed to go down quite well. Played a couple of games of pool & darts before playing Jenga. This version had forfeits on the blocks but they were largely ignored with the loser downing a shot of Baccardi! (No I didn't lose, which was a good thing as I had to drive back!)

Nickelback!

Went to see Nickelback at the Savvis Centre on Tuesday night. There were some tickets available at work for the corporate box so I put my name in the draw & was lucky enough to get a ticket - cool.

There were two support acts, before Nickelback which were both OK. The first band was called Default, & I can't remember the name of the other one (obviously didn't leave much of an impression!). The show got louder as the night went on & there was a pretty good stageshow with plent of pyrotechnics & videoscreens. The company box is opposite the stage & about two thirds of the way up the stadium, so you get a really good view of the stage & the speakers are directed straight at you (loud). I think that a good night was had by all!

Moving out

I have now moved out of Mansion House & am now living in Fenton. It took me longer than I thought to pack my stuff, but everything fitted in the car so I only had to make one journey on 'eviction night'. Now I'll have to find out where everything is, as so far my base has been downtown & so I have gone shopping to places that are closer to there.

New car

Picked up my new car on Thursday night. It is a Ford Escape 3.0 XLT 4WD compact SUV. As you can see from the pictures, it is light metallic silver with a grey leather interior, 5-spoke alloy wheels, & privacy glass. It also has a 3 litre, transversely mounted V6 which usually drives just the front wheels, however, the vehicle has intelligent 4WD which sends drive to the rear wheels when a lack of traction is detected.