St Louis

We hit the road by about 10 am on Saturday. The weather was decent. A few scattered, light rain showers, but no downpours. Traffic was good until the last mile or two - no cause for complaint. We made the trip in just about five hours, including out stop for gas. Our hotel was easy to find and check in was no problem

I guess we are lucky we found a hotel room easily and affordable - March Madness is in town. It is the round of sixteen and we are just a couple of blocks from the arena. There was a game on Friday night, before we arrived, and another on Sunday. Fans are out in droves dressed in their spirit wear. I realized again how lacking our kids sports education has been when I had to explain what is going on.

We arrive at our room and discover a spectacular view of the Arch, glinting in the late afternoon sun. We decide to head over in that direction. The first thing we get to is a hill, which the kids want to run down. Who can say no to such a simple pleasure? Off they go, crashing at the bottom and muddying their pants. Oh well, it is vacation. When we arrive at the arch we learn that the journey to the top ride is sold out for the day. We spend a couple of hours exploring the westward expansion museum which was quite interesting, although we were disappointed to find no mention or pictures of Seaman, the Newfoundland. After the museum the kids asked to take a carriage ride along the river and I agreed. Here we did find the statue that depicted Seaman. We took pictures to show Finn. We finished the day with dinner at the hotel restaurant, an Irish pub. Guinness on tap - great way to end a day

Sunday morning we rose early, grabbed a quick breakfast in the hotel and walked back to the arch. We arrived 15 minutes before it opened and the line was already building. Our tram tickets were for 9:30. The Arch is a beautiful monument and the timeline of its being built was quite interesting. I guess because it has existed for my entire lifetime I never realized how that it did not per exist me by very much. The view from the top is spectacular, but being jaded Chicago kids, it was mentioned by my three that the view does not compare to that from the Sears Tower.

After the arch we headed to the City Museum. Many friends had sung its praises, all telling me it was not to be missed. Enroute we found a Starbucks, which made me very happy. Mack, Liam and Devlin put up with my stop since I bribed them with cookies and pastries. A city guide saw us walking down the street, correctly guessed our destination and helped us to find the somewhat hidden entrance. The kids were indeed thrilled and spent a few hours climbing, crawling through tunnels, sliding, playing in the giant ball pit and chasing each other around. The giant hamster wheel seemed to be everybody's favorite

Sunday evening in Saint Louis is a quiet night. We're it not for the basketball fans I think it would have been close to a ghost town. We used Yelp to find a Thai restaurant and had a very nice dinner and then used yelp again to find gelato for dessert. We settled down to read at 8, lights out at 9 and everybody very excited for the next stop on our adventure.