Mississippi River Trip: Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife!!

I greeted Larisa with these words when she woke up this morning.  As a girl she collected pins from places she'd been or seen, so over the course of our trip I did the same, secretly.  I got her pins from all of the National Parks we'd been to, and attached them to her hat in the middle of the night while she was sleeping.  When we into the car after showering and figuring out where we were going for breakfast it was the first thing she saw, and she loved it. 

Collecting the pins had been tough - Larisa likes to do the visitor's center withsomeone, not alone.  So the entire trip I found myself making excuses to go to the bathroom, send her to the car for something (usually her notebook so that she could get a "passport" stamp from each visitor's center) or generally disappeared for a couple of minutes.  It looks like I managed fool her because she claims that the pins were a complete surprise.

After breakfast we decided to walk around the Gaslight District.  Basically it's a collection of high end restaurants and tourist shops - nice for window shopping.  We got Larisa some ice cream from the Ghirardelli  shop, and then wandered on, taking in a large outdoor mall on the way and snapping pictures together.  Since all of our clothes were camping clothes (meaning stained and old) Larisa kept her eye open for a dress to wear for her birthday dinner, and found one at a little shop near where we'd parked the car.  She agonized over the price until I pointed to a sign in the shop window that read "Your husband called and said you can have anything you want!"  I told her to get the dress (she looked fantastically sexy in it) as well as the wrap that went with it.  How often do you celebrate your "29th" birthday, after all?





 After the Gaslight District we headed to the harbor to look at the ships, including the HMS Surprise replica ship used in the movie Master and Commander, the USS Midway, and others.  Mainly we took pictures from the outside, because we thought the admission price for the Midway was too high.  We walked, talked, and snapped more pictures, then decided to move on so that we could get ready for dinner. 

Russian ''Turisto'' asking for water...

 A couple of hot showers later we were headed back downtown to visit Royal India, named Best Indian Food for several years in a row.  Before heading inside we found some good light and I took a bunch of pictures of Larisa in her new dress.  I, of course, was still dressed like a camper who's been on the read too long, but she looked great. 

 
 The food was very good, but I can honestly say that I've had better here in Fairfax (at Jaipur on Lee Highway).  We walked a bit more, but were tired and full and decided to grab some sleep, since we plan to head back first thing in the morning.