St. Louis

 Last weekend we decided to take a mini vacation to St. Louis. I've been wanting to go since our trip was cancelled last summer, and we love exploring new cities! We got on priceline and booked the Hyatt in downtown for $60 (I love priceline!). We were only in St. Louis for 2 days but we had a total blast!

Stopping at the Stake n Shake in Columbia... as you can see Rob and I are so excited about our trip that we are totally neglecting our children sitting in the background... I suppose is they were kidnapped we would at least have a picture of the culprit

Four hours and four milkshakes later... we reached our Hotel to find that is was across the street from the Arch! We got settled in and then talked to the concierge who took one look at us and told us he knew exactly where we should go... The Loop. We hopped on the Metro (oh how we love mass transit!) and walked a few gorgeous blocks to the Loop. When we saw the main strip, I started laughing SO hard. The street had been renamed... 

Barack Obama Blvd! HA! That concierge read us like a book. We then headed to the pizza place Pi, and it was INCREDIBLE!

The pizza was absolutely delicious and just looking at the picture right now makes me hungry! Everything was organic, natural and scrumptious... well done Mr. Concierge!

Heading back to the Hotel, we enjoyed another Metro ride. The kids loved it and we of course thought of the Max back in P-town. 

Walking back to the Hotel, we enjoyed the fantastic view of the arch. Rob said that his friend told him you could go to the top. We decided that this friend must have been kidding... right!? 

Anyway, back in our room (yes this was our view!) we took in the Cardinals game from both the TV and out the window. We would watch the home run on the screen, and then see the crowd erupt out our window. Very cool. And the Cardinals won! 

DAY 2

There was a Starbucks in our hotel so we started out the day right. We then walked across the street to the Arch... it was truly incredible! As we got closer we discovered you COULD go to the top!

This is the very base of it... 

Under the Arch is a museum reminiscent of a D.C. memorial... which actually the Arch IS a memorial. Anyway, we got our tickets to go to the top and the lovely Arch worker asked if any of us had a problem with heights or claustrophobia... I said no, but thought well kinda?!?

This is why he asked:

This little pod holds five people (barely) and rocks back and forth all the way to the very top of the Arch... crazy!

It's even smaller than it looks like in this picture!

At the top!

This was our view!

In the middle was the old Courthouse that you saw in a picture earlier, the tan building to the right was our hotel. 

After our adventure in the Arch, we packed up and headed to the St. Louis Zoo. I usually find zoo pictures a little boring... but I couldn't resist!

Bear faces... I love Justice in this one!

Ok seriously HUGE tortoises... Probably the coolest thing I saw there!

Watching the hippos swim was incredible as well! 

We also caught a few smaller elephants playing in the water... I'm pretty proud of this picture... he's even looking at the camera!

The joys of cotton candy!

After the zoo we headed over to REI... which we don't have in KC. It was pretty fun to walk around and dream of all the adventures we will go on one day! 

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Wholefoods, another store we don't get to go to often enough, and then headed back home. 

Amazing trip. Now its time to plan our next road trip!