It was a slow rising day, and coffee in the room start. Exciting times.

After we finally were ready to go out, we just rambled outside and headed toward what I think of as downtown. The big question was “would Patty recognize anything from 1974?”

This is known as “Granite City” and one can see why. On our rather posh street all the buildings are of the rock. It also appears that most are now either hotels or businesses. I’m not sure I saw even one that was someone’s home.

We walked a good amount before getting an actually breakfast and better coffee. But then it was coffee and muffin time. I can’t say much for either, but hey, it was a chain so it was what it was. And it wasn’t Starbucks so there’s that. (We refuse to go there when we are abroad. We avoid it at home as much as possible as well.)

Then we did a lot more walking, more photography, and just enjoyed the pleasant day. It really was mostly a day of rest (appropriate, eh?) for us in any case.

We had decided earlier to enjoy the Sunday Roast so I found a place that served that called “Noose & Monkey”. I think I should look up that name: surely there’s a reason for it, yes? Normally I don’t eat meat other than fish and poultry, but I made an exception for this and it really was quite yummy.

It will obviously serve for our big meal of the day. As we sat in the pub (for a very long time!) we saw that it had started to rain. Earlier we’d have a few drops of “not rain”, but this looked more substantial.

Leaving Noose & Monkey the rain had stopped. We walked a bit more, but it was fairly clear we were running out of steam, so we opted to head back to our hotel.

By the time we arrived it was close to 5:00 anyway, so we put our feet up and relaxed.

Sooo … did I recognize even one thing on our adventure today? Nope.

Not. One. Thing.

Ah well … August 1974 was quite a long time ago.

We did some resting, I did some showering, and eventually we went downstairs to the bar to get a light bite. Turns out the same (somewhat costly) menu in the dining room was the same in the bar. Not to worry — I had already known I’d opt for the soup starter and leave it at that. Dan did the same. Cullen skink is a tasty soup and did the trick.

When we returned to our room I packed as much as I could for tomorrow’s very early wake up and taxi to the airport. Being the keeper of the toothbrush and toothpaste I only had that, my pjs, and the electronics (like this iPad) to shove into my day pack in the morning. I have a habit, on these trips, of setting next day’s clothing out so I don’t even have to think when I rise. Thinking is just so over rated!

We fly a new airline (to us) tomorrow, from an airport unfamiliar to us. We will get there early and I’m sure we’ll realize we are too early, but I don’t like to stress so it’s fine by me.

But now it’s time to attempt to sleep. Goodnight!