You know, St. Louis has some really great historic stuff...
Let's run down our fun times today, shall we?
This morning we left Staunton for a short drive over to St. Louis. Once we got there, we obviously took a wrong turn and got lost. On the bright side, we got to drive over the Mississippi River three times!
After finding our way through the downtown construction, we parked (parking is WAY cheaper here than in Chicago, also St. Louis is a lot smaller than Chicago) and walked to The Old Courthouse. The courthouse is the famous site where Dred Scott sued for his freedom. This is part of the fourth grade social studies curriculum in South Carolina, so Kim was excited! The Old Courthouse houses some exhibits temporarily until the Museum of Westward Expansion renovations are completed at the Arch.
We bought our tickets and took a short walk to the Arch.
The pure size of the Arch is unbelievable. Everyone should visit. Here is Paul standing underneath the Arch.
We walked through the airport-like security down into the bottom of the Arch. When we got there, we saw an amazing carved representation that shows the size comparison between the Arch and other monuments. This will be the largest monument we see on this journey. It is taller than the Redwoods, Mount Rushmore, and the Washington Monument.
We got our National Parks Passport stamped, per our traveling tradition.
We even pretended to be a Junior Ranger for the day!
That wasn't the real reason we came, so we focused our attention on taking the "Journey to the Top!" We were assigned door 4 on the south side of the Arch. We watched a short film and hopped in!The Arch wasn't busy when we arrived, so we got the tram all to ourselves.
And Paul was scared...
At the top, the views were breath-taking and awe-inspiring. It was very narrow and you had to lean over to see out of the viewing ports. Here's a few pics from the top.
Mississippi River and Illinois
St. Louis
Straight Down!
Cardinals Stadium
Kim's View
630 feet off the ground!
We had a great time in the arch! After we came back to Earth, we took a pics from the bottom and then headed to the museum in the Old Courthouse.
Lying at the base of the Gateway Arch
Westward Expansion
Westward Expansion
Next we decided it was time for food! A few different people recommended Pappy's Smokehouse, and we were excited to try it out! So we jumped in the car for a short ride across town for some amazing pulled pork and smoked turkey! We waited in line about 25-30 minutes, but it was worth it. We were both stuffed by the time we finished, but everything was amazing!
There were lots of signed menus from all the celebs that have eaten here, like Hugh Jackman above.
Once we finished eating, we headed for Anheuser-Busch for a tour of the original brewing factory and tasting! It was very cool and interesting. They even had some of the famous Clydesdale horses on the grounds. We got a chance to see the brewing process, visit the stables, and tour the historical grounds (including one building that used to be a school).
This was a giant refrigerator.
Beachwood Chips
Tour guide - He was funny.
This room was kept extra hot for the mash.
This is the second most taken picture in St. Louis.
As the tour finished up, we were directed to the Beirgartens to redeem our free tokens for free drinks!
While we were waiting in line, they brought out one of the Clydesdales for some photo ops. He was very beautiful and photogenic. And, of course, right as we were finishing our picture, he decided to poop all over the place. It was a good time.
We hopped back in line and redeemed our free drinks (we choose slush Lima-rita's, because it was hot). Paul immediately drank his way to fast and received a major brain freeze for his troubles.
We enjoyed our drinks and the beautiful day, but it was getting late and we had some driving to do so with sadness we left AB and went to our last stop of the day.
Hard Rock Cafe.
(For those that don't know, we have a collection of shot glasses and we are trying to visit as many as we can on this trip)
As we spent the day in St. Louis, we couldn't help noticing the awful shape that the city was in. There were several rundown buildings and graffiti in a lot of places. While every major city will have these things, it seemed as if it was all over a lot of St. Louis where other metropolises might have pockets. As we traveled we had an uneasy feeling about the place. But I guess these things could be a bi-product of the craziness of Ferguson (which is very close to St. Louis) ...who knows.
There are a lot of cool things to do and see, but this is a place we may not care to visit ever again.
Until next time,
-Paul and Kim
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