St. Louis Trip

Over the weekend we took a trip to St. Louis! It was the closest thing we've had to a vacation in years. The actual purpose of the trip was to pick up an old car that Danny bought on eBay but I told him since we were going to have to drive 7 hours we might as well have a little bit of fun too. So we got up at 5 am Saturday and were out of the house by 6:15. We stopped once for breakfast and twice for bathroom breaks so we made pretty good time. Our first stop in St. Louis was the car dealership. We wanted to get the car out of the way so we'd have the rest of the day to do whatever. After that was all taken car of we drove to the hotel, checked in and decided to get a little lunch. While researching St. Louis I found out that there were several White Castle's around our hotel so I told Danny we needed to go there so he could experience White Castle burgers (I had White Castle in Ohio 4 years ago). We somehow managed to find a White Castle in a not so great part of town but we decided to eat there anyway. It was definitely an experience but I don't think we'll make a point of driving 7 hours for White Castle again.

After lunch we decided to go check out the home of Bigfoot. No, not the hairy manimal, the monster truck. Ashton loves monster trucks and when I saw the brochure at the hotel I knew we'd have to pay Bigfoot a visit. Unfortunately they lock Bigfoot up at 3 on Saturday and we got there after 4. We were still able to get some pictures though.

Of course no visit to St. Louis is complete without a visit to the Gateway Arch so after visiting Bigfoot we headed downtown. Our visit to the arch consisted of driving by it on all sides, mostly because the Rams were having a home game and all of the parking lots were full or charging $30 for parking. So we decided that we didn't really need to get out of the car to appreciate the arch. We drove around downtown for a little while after that just enjoying the scenary and the nice weather. We drove past the Amheiser Busch brewery and were surprised that you could actually smell beer just driving past the building. Then we got lost in a not so favorable neighborhood.

After finally getting out of the questionable area we decided to go ahead and find the zoo since we planned on going there Sunday morning before we left town. After driving around for awhile we finally found it. By that time we were ready to go relax for awhile so we went back to the hotel and Ashton and I swam while Danny napped. Dinner Saturday night was pretty late but we found a Steak and Shake and decided to give it a try. It was excellent! I'm disappointed that the closest one to us in in Lawrence.

The next morning we got up, had a continental breakfast and headed to the zoo. Ashton loves going to the zoo so that was the highlight of the trip for him. We didn't have time to walk the whole zoo so we decided to ride the train so we would at least see most of the zoo. Ashton also loves trains so riding a train at the zoo was even better than just a trip to the zoo.

When we were done at the zoo we were ready for lunch so we headed to Fitz's. I had found out about Fitz's while browsing some sites about St. Louis and I'm so glad I did. They bottle their own root beer and it was some of the best root beer I've ever had. They had good burgers and fries too. Then after lunch we went back by the hotel to get Danny's new old car and headed home. The drive home seemed to take forever but I think that was mostly because I was in a car with an almost 5-year-old for 7 hours by myself. Needless to say we were all very happy to be home.