Quick Trip to St. Louis

Merry Christmas to the family! My boss gifted me Cubs tickets for Christmas this past December. 

We are trying to visit as many of the MLB ballparks while the Cubs are playing there - this year, none of their east coast games coincided with our vacation, so we looked at different parks within a half-day drive and parks we hadn't visited yet. Our only options were St. Louis and Kansas City. We decided to visit Busch Stadium and purchased tickets for the July 13th game. We planned to make a weekend of it. 

We left the house around 5:00 am, giving us enough time to drive to St. Louis with a breakfast stop along the way, allow for traffic near St. Louis and time to walk around downtown before heading in to the stadium.

The kids were tired and slept a good portion of the drive!

Once in St. Louis, we found our parking lot (purchased with the tickets) which was located right across from Busch! Nice & easy! Since we were so early, we headed on foot to the Arch.

St. Louis has done a great job with their ballpark and surrounding area. Bonus that it was still pretty quiet in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, the Old Courthouse was closed for construction. We were able to walk around and catch glimpses of it through the temporary fencing. 

Statue of Dred and Harriet Scott, representing one of the most important cases in US History (which was heard in this courthouse in a suit brought in 1846.  From the website listed above, "The Scott family didn't find the freedom they sought through the legal challenge, but their courage and determination in filling this case helped bring about the Civil War and and freedom from enslavement for all Americans."

From the Old Courthouse, we crossed the street to walk around the Gateway Arch National Park. We've visited the Arch a few times over the years, but its been a few years since our last visit.  It was nice to walk around, taking in the Arch from different angles with minimal crowds (mainly other baseball fans). 

Maddie & I walked down the steps to see the Arch from below.

We walked into the lobby area to cool off (A/C is such a blessing!) and use their restrooms.

After that quick break, we headed back towards Busch Stadium. The gates would be opened now.

When I purchased the tickets, Matt & I knew that we wanted a full city view, including the Gateway Arch. It is an iconic view! I went straight to the top and found seats in the very last row. Here was our view - it was beautiful!

The top row proved to be a wonderful choice! This particular day was sunny and close to 90°, it was hot! Thankfully, there was a refreshing breeze and I'm pretty sure that only us in the top row felt it (from the southwest and nothing obstructing the breeze). Being in the shade for the whole game and the continuous breeze at our back, it made the game bearable. 

Kaitee & Matt explored the park a bit before the start of the game.

The game started on a promising note - Suzuki hit a homerun in the top of the 1st. Unfortunately, that was the highlight of the game. The bottom of the first was beyond ugly. Our pitcher got hit really hard, including 2 errors (made by him!), totaling in 9 Cardinal runs. It was frustrating to watch and downright embarrassing. With it being a blow out from the get-go, we sat back and enjoyed the experience (as much as we could). The final score was 11-3.

We will be back - and we will Fly the W!

We left Busch and went in search of an early dinner. Our plan was to eat at Fitz's Delmar but when we checked in, there was a 45 minute wait. We left in search of a quicker meal since we were really hungry. We ended up grabbing Imo's Pizza and taking it to a nearby park. 

While driving around, we came across this Large Amoco sign.

Our next stop - Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sappington, MO. 

As we left Laumeier, we saw the cat sculpture and asked the kids to take a picture in it. We wanted to compare it to our 2011 picture.

Our last stop for the day was Ted Drewes for some delicious frozen yogurt! It was a wonderful way to end the day. We were hot and tired. It had been a long day (up and on the road by 5 am...really hot weather...Cubs loss) but this was the perfect way to end it!

Sunday morning, we wanted to take advantage of the early morning "quiet" and cooler temps. We drove to Forest Park - a 1,300 acre park in the heart of St. Louis. We spent a few hours driving through the park, stopping and exploring as we went. 

Emerson Grand Basin - with the St. Louis Art Museum on the hill.

Pagoda Circle/Pagoda Lake

Municipal Theater (The Muny - outdoor theater)

Blue Angels Jet & James McDonnell Planetarium

The Jewel Box

Forest Park Forever Brick Paving Plaza with the World Fair Pavilion on the hill. 

We made a quick stop at Turtle Park - across the interstate from the St. Louis Zoo. Always fun memories made here. 

We've played at Turtle Park a few times - I love comparing the pictures of the kids over the years.

2011

2016

2024

As we left the city, we made 2 more stops - Bellefontaine Cemetery & Calvary Cemetery. Ironically, across the street from each other.

William Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

Dred Scott

William Tecumseh Sherman

One stop that has been on our list for years is Confluence Park (Edward "Ted & Pat Jones) in West Alton, MO. This park is where the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi River. This is also very close to the point where Meriwether Lewis & William Clark set off on their expedition. 

We were excited to experience Confluence Park. Throughout the weekend, I had been checking the park website to see if the park was closed due to flooding (it often floods...and the Mississippi had been over its banks for much of July). The website didn't show any closures, so we headed to the park.

We saw this beautiful field of sunflowers as we drove!

Sadly, we got to a "road closed" sign. Due to flooding, the park was closed. We were bummed. Just means another visit, another time. 

On the drive back, Matt saw this turtle. He pulled over and Will moved it away from the road.

We crossed the Mississippi River at Alton and headed south to the Lewis & Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford, IL. Great views and very informative. The tower consists of 3 platforms - each 50 feet apart. The 3rd platform is 150 ft above the ground.

The confluence of the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers can be seen in this picture, where the land juts out in the middle of the water on the right side of the picture.

We left Hartford, grabbed lunch and then headed home. What a wonderful weekend away - seeing our Cubbies play, a beautiful stadium, some fun sites, beautiful scenery, great food and lots of history.