This week we are on vacation with my in-laws. My wife and mother in law decided they wanted to go to St. Louis, Missouri. We left around 10:30 am. We drove for maybe an hour and a half and stopped for lunch at Arby’s. Needles to say say not my favorite place to eat… but it could have been worse and it was for the greater good.

Once we were back on the road we stopped at O’ Fallen Brewery. They make a seasonal pumpkin beer that is very good. They have other flavor variations of the pumpkin beer. The pretzels we had were really good. So we decided to stop by and sample some other beers. We tried almost all over the beers they had on tap and some starter plates to try. And of course bought beer to take to the AIRBNB we rented.

When we arrived at the rental house; we realized we were in a rough neighborhood. It was a very nice house in a historic building and in a historic neighborhood. Not like founding fathers historic but still historic int its own right. When we unloaded the truck and took everything upstairs we realize it was very hot upstairs. It had been set to 89 degrees and it was 98 degrees outside. So we turned it down and went to dinner.

For dinner we went to The Vine Mediterranean Cafe. The cafe was maybe a five minute walk from were we were staying. We walked there a little before it got dark. The service was not great, we had to track down the waiter a few times to place our order. The staff was knowledgeable but that only goes so far. They messed up our order a little. Soup instead of salad. But we dealt with it. The food was over cooked. Chicken was very dry and rice was crunchy. So we finished the food that was edible and paid the bill and left.

At this point it was dark out. While we were waiting for dinner my mother in law took our daughter down the street and saw a couple performing life music. Mostly, guitar and singing. So after dinner we went back and watched some more. We let our daughter put a couple dollars in their tip guitar case. Our daughter loves the music and was dancing and was having fun. But like typical city with high crime we had a close call and almost got my wife’s purse.

So… the story. There were a group of two people trying to steal our stuff. A woman started hovering around my wife and standing behind her and not paying attention to the music or clapping when the song was over. When I walked over she walked away saying she didn’t have time for this. There was another man standing on the far side of the group where my step father was standing and playing with a toy fishing rod to try and draw our daughter over in order to get me to step away from my wife. So we walked off and they started following us down the street. We crossed over and we looked back to see where they were. They started yelling “What are you f**kers looking at”. So we kept walking and started turning the corner to our street. We noticed they had crossed the street and were walking towards us. So we turned around and I took us down an alley. Yes! It was a dark alley. But! It was dark and I wasn’t worried about them seeing us down there. Our daughter was feeling our because it was dark. I just wanted to make it back to the house.

We made it back to the house and it was about nine o’clock pm. Gave our daughter a bath and opened the windows, as it was still over 85 degrees. We were all in bed, sweating, and heard several gun shots. So,all and all it was an interesting night.