Finding the Mall

I have been living at the pond for 20 months and never checked out the nearest mall until today.  Emily Peterson, our guest, had some Christmas gift certificates she wanted to spend, so we needed to find a mall.  Plus, I had been researching quilt shops and found out there was one close to the mall.  So off we went.  We were able to convince Mike to accompany us because there was also a Five Guys hamburger place in the vicinity.

On the way to the mall, we drove thru Collinsville home of the world's largest catsup bottle.  It is a 170 foot water tower built in 1949 for a catsup bottling plant.  They bottled Brooks brothers tangy catsup which can still be found today.  Unfortunately, the catsup is no longer bottled in Collinsville but residents have been working hard to keep the tower.  They even went to the trouble of having it added to the National Register of Historic Places.  There was also another one of the St Louis 250th birthday cakes placed at the
bottom of the tower.

We had a good day shopping and stumbling upon
the unique water tower.  Lunch at Five Guys was great but I'm not sure it topped the Country Store and the soft pretzels we had on Saturday.  I'll have to conduct a survey among my traveling companions.