An amazing day, really a 24-hour period, but still we managed to pack a lot into a day’s worth of time. It all started Friday evening, when I ended up working later then I had planned. I had to help lockup, which always takes even longer, before I could leave work. Traffic was snarled, so my commute home was slow too. My impatience was because I wanted to attend the Balloon Glow event that evening in Forest Park. I finally got home, plopped for a while, so much for haste, and then Anne and I launched towards the Park. We launched by bike. It was after dark, but we carried lights. It was already after seven when we launched and the glow only lasted until 8:30. Big deal you say, Marquis you live five miles from the furthest point of the Park.

The Balloon Glow is the most congested event, all year, in Saint Louis. It actually dwarfs its main event, the balloon race on Saturday afternoon. It has held this title for years. It use to be held on Aviation Field, near the old Highway 40, now the new I-64, but MODOT complained, because it caused such a horrendous gaper block. Back then only 40,000 people attended the event. This year the crowd was estimated at 80,000. Crowd or no, we navigated our way to the central ball fields, where the event is now held. On the way, we cruised by the Grand Basin and Art Hill. Art Hill was festooned with American flags, some 3,000 of them, one for every life lost on 9/11. This exhibit was erected last week, in honor of the 9/11 anniversary, but we were out-of-town and had not seen it until last night. The low light, caused a slow shutter speed, which combined with the wind flapping flags, gave these flags an almost ghostly quality. We visited the Balloon Glow, but because of the wind, they were already shutting down, so we didn’t stay long. It was about nine o’clock by then, and we were getting a little hungry.

We stopped at Katie’s Pizza on the way home. Katie’s opened in 2008 and has defined all expectations to become quite the phenomenon. What it has going for it most, is its rather eclectic menu. We had the salmon pizza, with capers. We got eight miles, but then it wasn’t about the miles, was it?