This bud's for you and you and you ..

What a beauty above - yes?

As I'd mentioned oh so long ago we thought we'd do the Budweiser tour in St. Louis.... well, we obviously did.

It seems, however like it was about a month ago - yup, bad Tracey - bad bad bad so lazy with posting of late and so much to post about! BAD BAD BAD

We have done the Bud tour in Merrimack, NH a time or two and it was a good take - well worth the price of admission (fyi, there is no price of admission)!!! St. Louis however was a better take - the plant was much much larger than Merrimack and the original Bud plant with a great history and beautiful old buildings - most with arches (I guess I was really on this arch thing about St.Louis ~ I did take a few photos of the arches at Bud'ville, but won't post them - seems a bit like nagging or something - I think I might be obsessed with this arch thing and doubt that anyone else is ...... so y'all be spared additional arches.)

Above is the dalmatian at the St. Louis plant - he was not a particularly friendly sort of fella - however, the dalmatians are there to guard their horses - well "back in the day" (as Frick would say) they were put on the wagons to guard the "goods" while deliveries were being made - this guy was woken from a nap when our tour came through his barn (and it was not like any barn I'd ever seen for sure) and he was quite protective. The Clydesdale in the top photo was obviously outside, but there are several stalls where these guys spend the night in the most palatial stalls (palatial is a word Rick and I use frequently - as someone, whom I suspect had NO personal knowledge of the place, referred to the "kennel" UGH where Sir stayed in Jacksonville at the airport last February when we flew to NH to welcome our Muffin Princess into the world ... so the term is used in jest often)

Below - just a photo from the tour ....

Below here is a fox - like three others on the four corners of the canning/bottling building ... This guy guarded the building during the prohibition years when Budweiser was still working, but bottling soda/pop/tonic - call it what you want depending on the part of the country you are in! I believe the beverage was called Pevey, but for the life of me I can't remember that chapter of the tour. Anyway, the fox is sitting there with a cup of it in one hand and a sandwich in the other ~ see the close up in tiles inside the canning/bottling building - this was lovely tile artwork around the top of the room we were in as we entered the building to watch a video.

Below - some stats inside the canning/bottling line .... very interesting place - it smelled like beer though - imagine that huh!!! I can't stand the smell of beer and am in love with a beer drinker!

So, with all that St. Louis stuff behind us ~ we arrived here in Cape Girardeau, MO on Tuesday (YES my bad I KNOW that). We are staying at an Elks Lodge here - the lodge is on 100 acres of land, 30 of those acres are a lake. Unbelievable, gorgeous property - full hook up $10./night - WHAT THE HECK ... membership has it's benefits. On top of all that, we've had the entire campground area to ourselves all week -

Sir has had a ball, running swimming, chasing wilson and sleeping real well at night! Being the weekend, there are others here tonight, but I suspect they'll all be gone tomorrow, and unfortunately we will be out of here Monday or Tuesday as we have that commitment in LA on the 16th then we will make a hasty retreat to the Keys as quickly as possible - would like to be there at least by mid December. Don't know where we'll be for Thanksgiving this year but would truly like to be at an Elks or Moose helping serve a community Thanksgiving dinner .... we shall see how it all works out time/distance wise! Wherever we are, we will be so very thankful for this life we have.