Still in St. Louis, and it is suddenly cold outside today. Temperature outside is hovering around 40 degrees, but with a strong wind, they say it feels like 33. Tonight is supposed to get down below 30 degrees. We’re trying to assess just how cold that feels. We’re clearly weather wimps. Can we get to the Saint Louis Art Museum, given the chill? We’ll see.

I’ve been checking in on the cats via a little web cam that keeps track of what’s going on in the main part of our house. I’ve been able to get a little cat fix every day, seeing which cats are around when David refreshes their food. I’ve seen just about all of the cats over several days. Here’s Leo, precariously perched on the narrow top of our flat screen TV. I think it was just a launching pad to one of his favorite perches behind the TV. So far, he hasn’t knocked it over, and it was still standing at last check. I hope his luck holds.

We did manage to take a bus a few miles to Cherokee Street yeserday, where small antique and specialty shops are clustered. We were here once before, more than 10 years ago. This time around, quite a few stores have closed and remain empty, or are for sale. There’s still enough to make the trip worthwhile, despite the rain that fell through most of our walking up and down the street.

They’ve also added historical markers with descriptions of individual buildings and their original owners or families that lived there. This approach helped to personalize the historical descriptions, a nice touch.

Click on the photo for some visuals of Cherokee Street, and click here for a short video look inside one of the fun shops along the street.

On the way back, we tracked down the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, tucked away in a lower level walkway of the Millennium Hotel, just a block away. Several Hawaii musicians have been honored, including Joseph Kekuku of Laie, who died in 1932 and joined the Hall of Fame in 1993.

Reading the news at home, I wonder what happens when your telephone company goes bankrupt? Could this lead to a fire sale of assets? And what happens to service under those conditions? I’m more than a little vague about the process here and the degree of control the PUC has over the situation.

Tomorrow is a travel day, so I’m not at all certain I’ll be able to post anything before we leave for the airport. Perhaps I’ll be able to get something up during one of the stops along the way back to Honolulu.