The Show Me State... Day 1

So far, so cool. The trek here wasn't bad at all. Luckily, Mr. Casey K was all up on that driving for a bit. After 5 hours of straight driving, my brain wasn't entertaining itself any longer with Meghan's Top Tens (which consisted of me evaluating everything in my life—sorting and rating—in lists of 5 or 10) and my eyes were getting sleepy! We pulled over at a Flying J (makes me think of some sort of winged illegals)... anyhow, we crashed for like an hour and a half in the parking lot. We woke to some interesting sights when we ventured inside. "I need a shower and a pack of cigarettes." Yep. Don't we all.

Essentially, we rode 70 the whole way here, which was easy. And I really did overestimate my need for gummies and licorice, because I still have some for the way back! But I'll tell you what... as much as I love the Starbucks, I sincerely warn you to never ever EVER have one of their energy drinks.

I'm sure that the concoction of the great Sheetz meatball sub I had, alongside one of THEIR coffee drinks wasn't the best predecessor to this Starbucks beverage, but still. The taste was horrendous. Like Casey suggested, it's like coffee and an energy drink had a baby... "and named it NASTY." (That was my add-on there.) It had a smooth delivery, a chemically jarring flavor and an aftertaste reminiscent of something I'd like to refer to as "Robot Coffee." I'm not talking Terminator here. Terminator had more realistic appeal than this beverage.

Besides my drink rant, I had a great day. We arrived with sun and blue skies, with a gorgeous skyline and a crazy feeling that I was driving into Pittsburgh. Strange how, thus far, St. Louis has been comforting—home-like. More on that later. All you need to know is I've encountered an awesome brewery, an affinity for riding bikes on a flat surface and a love-hate relationship with a cat named Prince. He's like the cat version of me—complete with the attention span of a 6th-grader, 2 extreme functions (HYPER-ON or off) and an indecisive swagger. Sloan tells me if Taylor Swift and Adam Lambert had a baby... a cat baby, this would be Prince. You decide:

Oh, so there's that. I plan on showering now. It's been awhile since that's happened. Ha... it's what happens when you visit hippies.

Take care, all! <3