Provel and Schlafly

Our time here in St.Louis has come to an end after an eventful five days. Tomorrow morning, once again, we mount up and ride for Bloomington, Indiana. I feel kind of bad for Brittany and Tay, who were planning on spending some time touring St.Louis while we waited for his apartment to be ready- we were kicking around the idea of going to SixFlags, museums, brewery tours, etc. but with Tay on crutches, our apartment a mess, and our lives a mess with all the work that needs to get done to get our semester organized and started, it's just what has to has to happen, with bits of St.Louis thrown in.

 

For example, yesterday was pretty productive. Saori sold Tay her car, and they worked out the insurance and title issues, I got an emissions inspection done and renewed my car registration, and Tay went back to a urgent care clinic for a re-evaluation of his ankle. Apparently, the Ponca City urgent care facility on Pecan were either inexperienced or just incompetent. They should have been able to see that it was just a bad sprain and not a break, regardless of the swelling- they did take xrays- they apparently supported his foot the wrong way using a splint designed for a broken leg. Anyway, he came back wearing an ankle splint that gave him more mobility and foot covering options. So, bad sprain it is. 

Afterwards, we ordered Imo's deluxe pizza, which is a local chain that sells St.Louis style pizza. St.Louis pizza is distinctive for three things- the yeast-less crust is very thin, the pizza sauce is cooked for longer to reduce it to a thicker, sweeter paste, and for the Provel cheese they layer on top. Provel is actually a trade name of a processed cheese blend of provelone, swiss, and white cheddar, made exclusively in Wisconsin for the St.Louis market. Let me tell you, the pizza is really not bad, but the cheese by itself is kind of funky and plasticky. However, we wouldn't be able to leave without trying it. We finished the night drinking Caipirinhas and playing Phase 10. 

Phase 10 is a card game which requires marginally more skill than mexican train dominoes. It makes up for this shortcoming by requiring nearly two hours to play a single game. As the winner is effectively determined by who is dealt or randomly draws wild cards, a faster way to play the game would be to simply go around the table drawing a single card at a time until someone drew a wild card. This would be the winner. However, its really a good game for making people think they're playing something strategic which helps script convivial social interaction, somewhat like kids in the backseat pretending they're driving the car. There are admittably worse ways to spend two hours. 

Today we had dinner and drinks at the Schlafly tap room in downtown. Good food, good beer, and we got to bring home beer glasses that we were all eyeing with the Schlafly logo. Even STP on the dessert menu, but of course not as good as the one at the Refectory.