We went to St. Louis to get fat and it worked.

Big Red and I recently embarked upon a trip to St. Louis, a city that has never had the opportunity to entertain us, until now. Our first outing started with a stroll down "The Loop," which has no resemblance to a loop at all, unless walking straight down a sidewalk then crossing the street and walking back in the opposite direction constitutes a loop for you. I've renamed it "The Rectangle."

We quite possibly burned about 35 calories before deciding we need to imbibe in an Anheuser-Busch territory beer tasting. We had a line up of blonde, pale, dark, light, etc.

This was an exciting moment for us. We're in the land of foamy golden hops and barley. It took a total of two sips to remind us - WE HATE BEER. So off we went our arms swinging with the determination to get back to the room to gussy up for the evening ahead.

(Ciroc was the alcohol of choice with no Champagne in sight)



Our divalicious gal-pal from the home of the Gateway Arch whisked us away to Playboy Cappuccino to have our first culinary experience. Upon our arrival I must note there was no Hugh Hefner sighting, and there were NO Cappuccinos, lattes or espressos within miles of this gin joint.

After months and/or years of training our muscles and body to understand we are on the journey to thinner, healthier vessels - a large shiny paper plate of deep fried chicken, deep-fried shrimp and double-fried steak potatoes landed on our fold-out table next to the wooden bowl (not bucket) of ice. You say, why is there a bowl of ice on the table? Well naturally if we wanted our drinks cold, we were going to need this accoutrement. The only other food option was deep-fried Tripe delicately placed between two starch WHITE pieces of Wonder bread. I haven't had white bread, let alone the polka dot wrapped gooey brand since Black Oak Arkansas had a hit song, well, a song anyway.


(Woman in the far left corner of this pic said, "white girls dancing, scare me." I told her I scare myself.)

I apologize ahead of time for what I'm about to describe. But if you, like I, have taken the oath of whole grain style carbs, then you need to know - once you bite into the above mentioned sandwich - the remainder of your evening is spent thrusting your tongue to-and-fro at the rooftop of your pie-hole in an attempt to scrape off the residuals of this White Wonder. I'm beginning to think this might be the end to my weight problem. If I make this selection for every meal, I'd never get through it - and I must have burned 150 calories peeling off the fresh plaster of dough.

Oh, and after a night of debauchery in the greasy, nasty, yummy, luscious deep-fried department - don't bother seeking refuge in a Jamba Juice the following day, unless you want to buy the space and open one up yourself.