We were mildly apprehensive going into things. The longest road trip we have ever taken with our kids was the day trip we took in March to Lincoln, NE. The drive to St. Louis went well, all things considered. The things to consider are we didn't bring them any portable electronics and they were both tired and ended up waking each other up. The biggest problem that arose was we had already driven about 10 miles past our exit when I looked at our directions to see where we needed to get off. This added about half an hour to the trip because it was rush hour and there were some construction congestion. Because of this mistake we decided to get dinner first and then stop at the hotel.
We ate our first St. Louis meal at Fitz's. The food was good, but maybe I was just relieved to be out of the car. We were all tired and hurried over to the hotel to get the kids settled for the night. Because Anthony traveled so much last year they upgraded us to a suite (as opposed to a queen bed and pull out couch that we were planning on). That proved to be serendipitous.
Each kid got their own queen bed. We were so pleased when the going-to-bed process went so smoothly. Unfortunately, Lauren struggled to fall asleep without the walls of her crib and she kept Will up. Eventually Anthony put a bunch of pillows on the ground between the two beds to mimic the feel of a crib and moved Will to our bed. After the kids fell asleep we moved Will back to his original bed.
The next morning we enjoyed a great breakfast at the hotel. Then we drove though a blighted part of the city to take Anthony to his work meetings. While he was working the kids and I drove over to visit the arch. Will was fascinated with the arch, but made me promise him I wouldn't make him go up in it until he was at least 9. Whatever you say, Will.
After we spent a few minutes walking around outside, it started to get hot so we went to the underground visitor's center and museum.
We had a good time walking though, but Will asked me some tough questions about Native Americans. The older he gets the tougher the questions and the more clearly I need to answer him.
I think it was the last week of school while we were in town. When we emerged from underground the line to enter had quadrupled and I counted 26 school buses on the roads adjacent to the arch.
After the arch we picked up Anthony, ate lunch, and rested.
Lauren's bed
The Zoo was on the agenda for the afternoon. The kids took long naps so we only had about 2 hours to see as many animals as we could.
Will was a taskmaster with his map. He still needs to work on actually understanding how to use it though. Also, he brought the map home and I have to tape it about once a day. If I could go back in time I would have picked up ten of those maps.
gorilla gazing
"Whooping it up!" with the African Crowned Cranes
totally surprised to see this guy
watching the leopard dry heave
"Look at the big worm, momma!" Lauren called all the snakes worms and it made me laugh. Snakes totally creep me out.
pretending to roar like lions when we stopped for a drink
copying Dad's ingenious method for cooling off
After the zoo we found a spot to picnic in the surrounding park.
Then we explored Forest Park for a bit. Anthony and I would have loved to have more time to spend there. We really wanted to check out the Missouri History Museum.
Cooling off our feet
Right after I took this picture we saw a sign telling us not to wade or
swim in the fountain. Oops. In our defense there were a bunch of kids
actually swimming in the water below.
We decided to do something a little more honest to cool us down--Ted Drewes Frozen Custard.
It was really good. You know when something comes highly recommended you almost expect it to be a letdown? Not the case here. It was delicious. Lots of good people watching too.
Friday we hit up the science center. Again, there were loads of buses filled with lots of kids who weren't supervised quite as well as I would have liked. We still had a good time.
Math nerds learning about probability.
Luckily we planned on going to the Discovery Room which was much less crowded.
Will fell in love with these drums and the acoustics in the teepee.
Will and Dad built an arch
making music
We stopped by the St. Louis Temple on our way out of town.
I struggled to get a picture where you could see the kids and the temple very well.
The ride home was fine until Anthony got a ticket. It's hard not to feel a little bit like we were being targeted as out-of-staters being that there were cars driving faster all around us. The ticket incident put a damper on things, but overall we had a great trip. There is a lot of stuff we were interested in doing in St. Louis. Our kids were just too young to pack things in as tightly as Anthony and I would have if we were there by ourselves. I guess we'll just have to go back again. Thanks to my friend Holly for giving us some great suggestions of things to do and see in St. Louis!
This year marks St. Louis' 250th birthday, and one of the ways the city is celebrating is with Cakeway to the West. The city has placed birthday cakes at sites of significance around town. We saw a few during our visit and the kids quickly caught on to looking for them (and then climbing all over them).
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| Right outside Fitz's and near the St. Louis Walk of Fame |
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| St. Louis Arch |
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| Ted Drewes |
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| St. Louis Zoo |
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| Science Center |
3 comments:
Looks like it was a great trip. Little kids in hotel rooms seem to always be problematic. St. Louis is fun. But it always seems to be hot when I go.
Looks like a blast! I hope we get to go back sometime and I'll check out that custard.
I'm glad you had an okay time. I hope my recommendations didn't disappoint too much. (I always worry about over-hyping.) The photos at the cakes are so cute!
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