And so here I am in Jefferson City with Coal Miner's Granddaughter!
Our event doesn't start until tonight, so we decided to head downtown to soak in all the big fun that Jeff-City has to offer.
Our first stop was the Missouri State Capitol Building. From the outside it looks pretty typical for a capitol building...
But on the inside? Absolutely stunning. Gorgeous art nouveau paintings depicting the life and history of Missouri cover the inside dome...
Inside this gorgeous building are busts of "famous Missourians" scattered around. Or, as in the case of Rush "Total Piece of Shit" Limbaugh, infamous...
There are also awesome people like Betty Grable (whose bust is creepy as hell) and Josephine Baker as well...
To the South of the Capitol Building is a monument for the Lewis and Clark trailhead. Since I've seen the end of the trail (about a half hour south of Astoria, Oregon), I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the start...
Unbeknownst to us, downtown Jefferson City had been closed off for Shelbyfest... the celebration of all things related to the Shelby Mustang...
The "Ghost Hunt Weekend" event is at the old Missouri State Penitentiary. We decided to go early so we could take a tour and know the history behind everything...
The grounds are massive. The buildings are massive. Everything is massive. This is just one of the buildings...
What's not massive? The cells. They're tiny. And, depending on the era, there were times that they held more inmates than you'd think were possible... four... even six per cell...
There are several buildings. We saw just two of them. The newer one seemed much more like what you'd think a prison looks like...
The last stop on the tour was the gas chamber. A place where 40 convicted criminals met their end...
Our tour was a particularly good one because our guide was a former prison guard. Even better? One of the first women guards was taking the tour with us. Even better? Two former inmates were also on our tour... one of whom was wrongfully convicted of a life sentence and served 23 years before he was released.
There are some happy residents of the prison complex... groundhogs! They're everywhere!
And that was the end of our day. The real adventure happens tonight...
This morning I had all kinds of ambition to get up early and wander around Prague for a few hours before I had to head to the airport. This didn't happen. Instead I stayed in bed and decided to actually be on vacation for a few hours. Which meant doing absolutely nothing. And so here I am now back in the Netherlands so I can blog Bullet Sunday and pack my suitcase. Vacation, it would seem, is officially coming to an end.
• Mucha Mucha. Prague is home to the Alphonse Mucha museum, where you can see original works of Art Nouveau by the master himself. Of all the amazing sights I've seen in the city, I'd have to say visiting this museum was the highlight. Being able to walk into a building and see art so beautiful that you have to struggle not to crap your pants should be what life is all about...
• No Dumbassery. Yesterday was "No Tech Day" which is about as stupid as it gets... right up there with the bullshit idiocy of "Shutdown Day" from three years ago. My iPhone has completely revolutionized most all aspects of how I travel, and I cannot fathom going back to the dark ages where I didn't have instant access to maps and important information wherever I'm at... especially when I'm in a foreign country on my own. Supposedly giving up tech gadgets is going to "improve the quality of your life," but that's such a load of crap. So long as the tech gadgets don't become your life, and act only to supplement it, wouldn't that be a good thing? I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before these people invent something even more asinine... like "No Toilet Paper Day."
• International Disaster. I see that the heinous Jersey Shore reality show is now being distributed here in Europe. The thought of other countries judging the USA by what they see on this show fills me with horror and no small amount of shame. I can only guess that this will set back international relations by decades...
• Tenth Photo. I was tagged by Josh is Trashy to participate in a photo meme. Here are the rules...
My first photo file is called "0000 Dave Misc" which is basically a catch-all folder for stupid images of me that don't really go with any other photos. This is the worst possible folder to be looking through, And the tenth photo is not really the one I would choose if forced to display one on my blog...
This would be a scanned photo of my first trip to Maui with my friends. I have no idea what's going on here, but I'm pretty sure it's just me being very, very happy to be in Maui. Probably while drunk. I have no excuse for the short-shorts except that it was the 80's. Yes, I know it's a sexy look for me.
Unlike photo number eleven, where I have an unfortunate hair-cut and even more unfortunate round sunglasses. There's no "sexy" to come out of this mess...
Oh well. I'm afraid that I am rubbish at tagging people with these things, but if you are so inclined to embarrass yourself, please do.
And, on that note, I suppose I should sign off and try to get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.
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