Anniversary #4 (Missouri)

So at this point we are on our way to St. Louis. We have now driven through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, ending in Missouri.

We pulled into St. Louis and parked on a side street downtown to Priceline a hotel. The one that came up was the Crowne Plaza right downtown across the street from the Arch and Busch Stadium (The Cardinals). So here we are walking into the lobby to check in with our backpacks, dirty hair and dirty horse clothes. I'm sure people were staring! We checked into our room and then headed back down to the parking garage to get our cooler and food. We couldn't leave it in the car, and we had to keep refilling the cooler with ice...so up it came. We hauled it from the basement parking garage up to the 21st floor. We had to walk through the lobby with it and then ride the elevator up. We were laughing so hard at what this scene must look like to others that we could barely carry the cooler/food bin.

On the balcony off our room

View from our balcony- the State House and Busch Stadium. A game had just started.

The Arch and Mississippi River from our balcony.

Our new campsite. It was a suite so we had a fridge and microwave.

It was such a relief to walk into A/C. The weather was also much cooler in St. Louis.

We showered and then headed out to find a Target to get some supplies for the weekend. Please note below that Scott packed hair putty. He was planning on doing his hair in the woods, as we THOUGHT we would be camping this whole weekend :)

After Target we spent the evening in the room watching the Oregon football game. It was the first for the season, and didn't end well. They have since made up for it. Since we had our camp food and a microwave we ate the Sloppy Joe's we would have had in the woods. The irony of the entire weekend was just too much  :)

After dinner and the game I beat Scott in Phase 10. He was all talk before and during the game...but it didn't really work out that well for him in the end. 

Lowest score wins!

Sunday we spent the day walking around the base of the Arch, attending a Cardinals game and picking up souvenir Cardinals shirts and poking around downtown. There is a park called Citygarden right downtown that is full of sculptures and wading pools for kids to play on/in. We also walked to the Wainwright Building which is credited as on of the first skyscrapers in the world. It was 10 stories tall and made of brick. Can you imagine when a skyscraper was 10 stories tall?!

The Wainwright building. The original building is the brick  building that is 4 windows wide. The rest was added on much later. 

Detail of the building

One of the sculptures in the Citygarden. The arms all moved (slowly).

For some reason I thought I could stand on the curved portion of the sculpture. Scott caught my attempt on camera.

It was such a cool place right downtown where families mingled. Downtown St. Louis seemed so safe even at night, it was  amazing. 

Pinocchio was there!

That night we went to The Hill (the Italian District) for dinner. When we arrived there was a bike race going on so we stopped to watch that for a bit before going to the restaurant. Lorenzo's was where we ate and it was amazing. We had beef tenderloin with Arugula and truffle oil, Chicken Pesto Pizza and a Meat Pizza. St. Louis has their own type of pizza (like Chicago or New York). They consist of a thin crust, a really sweet, light tomato sauce and a cheese blend that has no Mozzarella. It's called Provel and it's a mix of Provolone, Swiss, and Cheddar. It was DELISH!!

Italian house in The Hill

Later that night we went up to to the rooftop pool. It was way too cold and windy and there was no hot tub (what?!) but we did get a good view of the Arch from up there. 

Monday we went and did the Arch tour and headed back to Collierville. Next time we're in St. Louis we'll be going to Six Flags, a Blues game, the zoo and City Museum. It was a great weekend and such a fun city!