Catch up....

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days, but we have been unable to update blogspot due to technical problems.

We have had a jam packed programme this week in and around St Louis.  Tuesday Robert went to Cahokia Mounds with his host family, while the rest of the group went shopping or spent some quality time with their host families.  Cahokia Mounds is a world heritage site relating to a Mississippian tribe. We then all met up at the Fairview Heights Rotary Club meeting for lunch and presented before undertaking individual vocational activities in the afternoon and exploring Lebanon main street.  We ended the day at Papa Vito's pizza restaurant where we had the best pepperoni pizza with around 80 Rotarians dropping in to see us!!

On Wednesday we had an EXTREMELY early start at the O'Fallon Sunrise Club which meets at 6.45am!!!  After our presentation we went to Grants Farm, the home of the Budweiser Clydesdale horses before eating at O'Connells which has the BEST beef burgers EVER!!!   This was followed by a trip up the 630 foot Jefferson Memorial Gateway Arch in the smallest 5 person capsule in the world.  Roberta conquered her fears and made it back down in one piece.  The sights were amazing at the top - we could see for miles including the Courthouse, Busch Stadium and the Edward Jones Dome.  Later, we went to the Anheuser Busch Brewery Tour and sampled some exceptional beers, including their famous Budweiser! We finished up the day at the Big Bang piano bar at Lacledes Landing where we sang and danced the night away to duelling pianos.  The team was also forced to undertake an X-rated version of heads, shoulders, knees and toes on stage in front of the entire audience.

On Thursday the majority of the girls attended the annual State of the City breakfast with the Mayor of O'Fallon before heading for some vocational activities.  Rob never made it back from Missouri and spent the day undertaking vocational activities in the Wild West.  After lunch the girls met with Richard Avdoian who gave us presentation tips.  The evening was spent presenting at the Lebanon Rotary Club, where they very kindly presented us with "Where in the Dickens is Lebanon, Illinois" T-shirts!!!

Today, the girls spent some time at the MS Society and Family Hospice before visiting Cahokia Mounds followed by a trip across the river to the Science Centre/Art Museum.  Rob visited a children's hospital before joining Louise and Ellen at the Science Centre.  Rob, Ellen and Louise then visited the Bailey's chocolate bar where they enjoyed some amazing chocolate martinis.

The team is now off for a goodbye meal in O'Fallon before finalising the packing and weighing of the bags before we head to the airport first thing in the morning.  Let's hope our suitcases haven't put on as much weight as the team!!!!

That's all folks!! Hope you have enjoyed our blog!  Thank you to everyone in Southern Illinois for your great hospitality.  The team have had an amazing time!!!

Thanks again.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels!!

Yesterday started with a table tennis match between Rob and Louise - Louise won hands down!!  We then travelled to O'Fallon and the lunchtime club of the District Governor Greg Yank where we presented.  We met up with our new hosts and had a chilled afternon with the exception of Louise who met with a family attorney before being picked up by Dick Erdmann to see an amendment to a will and later the Cahokia Mounds. 

We enjoyed an italian with our hosts Gary and Carol before a trip to Lebanon to see 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' which was sooooooooooo funny!  We also enjoyed nibbles and champagne punch after the show and met the cast.

Looks like our last few days are going to be really busy, every minute has been planned - thanks Casey for all your work in putting our O'Fallon schedule together!

Lois and Clark

Today started with blueberry pancakes and treadmill training!  We were excited to see the sunshine and headed off towards what we previously thought was the Lois and Clarke tower but later found out was the Lewis and Clark tower - totally different people!!  Lewis and Clark mapped the north-west states from the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers to the west coast of the USA unlike Lois and Clark, that superhero duo! 

We then moved onto the Lock and Dam further upstream where we saw a half-mile barge navigate a gap only 4 feet wider than itself!  Louise and Rob did some simulated navigation but with many scratches and scrapes!  We saw turtles and pelicans!  We stopped off at McDonalds for cheeseburgers and then headed towards Grafton where we met Kate and Andy and had nibbles on their newly built wine terrace. 

After finishing lunch we headed to Bully's for dinner where we enjoyed a feast for 4 twice over which could have fed the 5,000!  Ellen also ate a bread and butter pudding as big as her head with ice cream on the side!

Just got back and have enjoyed temperatures of 28C today - bet you can't beat that at home?!  A big thanks to Dennis, Maeda and Red for a great couple of days!!  We love Collinsville!

This evening will involve a ping pong tournament where the winner will play Dennis, if he's still awake by then!!

Until next time........................

Sad goodbyes, killer logs, pedalos and ice cream!!!

So today we bid a sad farewell to our brilliant new friends from St Clair County and Swansea - we really have had fantastic hospitality and were sad to leave our new friends, but we're getting used to piling into vans to remote locations and being trafficked into cars with strangers and whisked off to our new hosts......fortunately Dennis and Maeda are hosting the entire team this weekend, it's been great to all be back together again and we've already managed to get out on the lake, albeit at a slightly slower pace than when we were in Martin's speedboat a few weeks ago!! This time we were in a pedalo which definitely added to the comedy value, Hannah and Roberta soaked up the sun in the back, whilst Rob and Ellen did the majority of the pedalling and Louise pretended to steer whilst complaining about the ever-increasing puddle she was sitting in!! We managed to safely manoeuver treacherous waters with some very hungry looking logs to return back in time for an awesome meal.

We then went along to Bobby's, a local Ice Cream haunt which is a real throwback to the 1950s, we really felt like we should've been dressed as T-Birds and Pink Ladies, there were gigantic queues of people waiting for this ice cream, but who can blame them.....in the words of our very own Miss Blackman "they're really tasty!!"...... 1 week left - the times really flown by. We've still got loads of things planned for us in the programme, but we're pretty exhausted and looking forward to a well-deserve lie-in in the morning! Night all :)

Brilliant and busy time in Belleville

Sorry for the delay in posting.....our schedule has been absolutely manic with every minute from 6am to 10pm covered!!!  Very tiring but excellent fun!

So, we left off when the team were getting ready for Chris Eckert's house.  Let's just say, we drank him out of a seemingly endless supply of white wine! Their hospitality was fantastic with great food and great company.  We particularly enjoyed Larry's crazy tour of the farm on his gator, which was extremely scary and fun in equal measures.

On Wednesday we had an early start, as we were headed to the Fox 2 TV studio with Mel and Rick.  There we met Wild Bill Young and enjoyed a tour of the studios, as well as briefly appearing on the show with a gentleman who played the piano and his wife who played the washboard!!!! Very interesting.  We also had the opportunity to take photos sat at the news desk which was fun!

After the TV Studio, we took a tour around the areas damaged by the storms in St Louis last week before heading to the zoo.  At the zoo, we managed to see lots of the animals as well as try the infamous Dipping Dots ice cream which was amazing!!! Let's hope it makes it to the UK soon!

The evening was spent at Busch stadium watching the Cardinals and included a trip onto the field during the pre-game warm up.  The team also immersed themselves in the local culture and ate hot dogs!! Although the Cardinals lost we had the best night.  A great end to a great day.  Thanks to Mel and Rick for their kind hospitality and for making the day so enjoyable.

Thursday was Rob's birthday!!! We started the day nice and early at Swansea breakfast Rotary Club where we enjoyed some cupcakes for Rob's birthday as well a rendition of the Land of Hope and Glory amongst other songs.  It made us feel very much at home, so thank you to the Swansea club for the effort they went to, especially club President Doug.

The team then split off to their separate vocational activities for the day, before reuniting at the Wine Tap to celebrate Rob's birthday in style.  Thanks go to Lisa for organising the event and to everyone who attended. It was also nice to enjoy some more cake!! (Rob had four lots of cake throughout the day!!!!!) We then spent the rest of the evening with our respective host families.

Today, we had another bright and early start with the St Clair East Rotary Club situated in the lovely Eckert's farm restaurant.  What an amazing breakfast!

We followed with a tour of Minds Eye radio station where we learnt all about the good work that they do.  We also visited the Scott Airforce Base, where we enjoyed a tour of the base and even managed to go up the Control Tower which had amazing views of the surrounding countryside.  For once, the sun was shining and we could see for miles!!!

We finished the day with a lovely meal at Maxwell's Italian restaurant and were joined by many Rotarians, including Bob Hardy whose motto is "you gotta eat somewhere"!!!!!

We can't believe that another week has flown by and that we only have one more week left!!!

Until next time.....

Mid Tour Update....

On Sunday some of the team members attended a Methodist Church Service before being transported by Gene & Muriel and Gilbert & Norma to Valley View Cabins in Anna-Jonesboro.

The Rotary Club of Anna-Jonesboro took the team out for a Mexican where we all ate too much and did a mini presentation.

The team would like to take this opportunity to thank Dutch for the DVD that he made during the teams stay in Marion, it certainly brightened our evening.

On Monday, the team were up bright and early and ready to hit Superman land, Metropolis.  The day started with a tour around La Farge, a cement factory, which is soon to be the largest cement factory in the world.  We learnt how cement is made and managed to keep relatively dry and dirt free.  We reallu enjoyed standing by the Kilns, which we were informed were at the temperature of the sun's surface inside.  Very welcome on such a cold rainy day.  Our guide informed us that the Ohio river, that runs at the back of the factory, was up around 50 feet compared with the normal water level. The flooding was certainly the talk of the town. It was also interesting to observe many people sandbagging and the queues of people waiting to pick them up!!!

We then moved on to Metropolis, but unfortunately the Superman museum was closed due to the flooding.  we did however, manage to get our photo taken with Superman despite the constant rain.

Lunch and dinner was hosted by the Rotary Club of Metropolis and the team would like thank everyone for the great hospitality that we received especially our drivers for the day Debbie and Joe.

The team are also immensely pleased with their new Superman status which is evidenced by our certificates and the "flash" Superman Rotary pin.

Today, we had an early start to travel to Belleville where we attended the Rotary Club of Belleville's lunch meeting and presented for them.  Thank you for their kind hospitality.

Tonight the team are looking forward to joining the local Rotarians at Chris Eckert's home for dinner, talking of which, we had better be off to get changed...........

The Dairy Queen

Today we travelled to Carterville for the District Assembly, where we presented to an audience of 150 Rotarians! Our confidence is building and the feedback was positive. We then set off for Golconda where we visited the Job Corps, where students aged 16-25 can learn a trade such as welding, joinery or forestry and boost their employability through development of maths and english skills. We were given a tour of the facilities from two students and treated to a delicious lunch prepared by students from the culinary arts course- definitely a grade A lunch!

Several of us spent the evening with Gilbert and Norma Oetjen, visiting the mall in Paducah, Kentucky, where Ellen bought and consumed $5 of candy and spoiled her appetite for the offerings at Dairy Queen.

Until next time!