Back in the good ole USA

After 30 hours and three separate flights, I finally made it back to the USA from Taiwan. Traveling more than 24 hours reminds me of the first 24 hours of a water only fast.  If you can make the first 24 hours, the rest is pretty easy. I heard that after 24 hours your body realizes it isn't going to have food so it stops sending hunger pangs, maybe after 24 hours of travel the same thing happens and your brain tunes out how long you've been traveling.

Anyway, the heat and humidity of Taiwan has prepared me for St. Louis brilliantly. Today it was 101°F with 38% Humidity...no problem! My family and I had a chance to go visit the home where Ragtime musician Scott Joplin lived in 1900. During the years he lived there he composed many of his popular songs including "The Entertainer". This is the only standing home that still exists today where Scott Joplin lived. He studied classical piano as a child and harmony and composition as an adult in Sedalia, MO. He wanted to create "America's first classical music." The sounds of his Ragtime music certainly has a very rich classical harmonic texture and syncopation, a true testament to the absolute king of Ragtime music.

After the Scott Joplin House, we headed over to Crown Candy. This famous kitchen opened up in 1913 and was made even more famous recently because of its "5 milkshakes in 30 minutes" challenge shown on the TV show "Man vs Food" with Adam Richman... I won't spoil his results, you can watch it here.

After my first Five Guys cheeseburger earlier in the day (quite good), I was only able to finish about half of my Crown Candy chocolate malt, the thing is ginourmous! One week left in St. Louis, then off to Los Angeles for the last week of my 40 year old Midlife Crisis.