St. Louis

St. Louis was one of my favorite stops on the trip. It was a big city, but not too big. Everything was nicely centralized downtown, but the traffic congestion wasn't bad at all. My favorite part was it was clean. The sidewalks and the buildings, it just seemed clean and fresh. I really enjoyed St. Louis. We went to a Cardinals games. Their new stadium was right downtown and made of beautiful red brick. The game was good, the crowd was a little subdued compared to Dodger Stadium, and the Cardinals lost their lead in the 8th and 9th innings, but I liked the park and it was fun to go to a game.
We went to Six Flags St. Louis the next day. The day was a scorcher. The temperature was 98 degrees, but the heat index was 111 degrees (we had to learn that they talk in heat indexes out here, it is temperature plus humidity). It was really hot, but we found ways to survive. They had garden hoses attached to showerheads throughout the park. We just stood under those and that helped. So did the 25 free refills of cold soda. The good news was: everybody else went home and we just walked onto most of the rides.
The next day we finished our time in St. Louis with a bang. We went on a riverboat ride on the Mississippi, then crammed into this tiny pod. It was for 5 people, but they put us all in there. Our knees were touching in the middle. We rode up to the top of the Gateway arch as the pod clunked and swung through the curve. It was a little nerve racking. But we enjoyed the views of the city from atop that famous landmark. From there, we went to our last stop in St. Louis, the City Musueum. Don't let the name fool you into thinking that this is another boring museum that kids are forced to drudge through with their parents. This place was a kids paradise. It was designed with the climbing kid in mind. If you could get there, you were allowed, even encouraged to climb there. There were wire tunnels 3 stories in the air going from airplanes to firetrucks. You could climb under the airplane. Inside there were caves and tunnels, stairs to climb and a 10 story slide to go down. Unfortunately, this place was not made with parents in mind. They asked us to stay with our children, so Jeff went with the big ones and I went with the small ones. After about an hour of trying to squeeze ourselves into places that made fat man's misery feel roomy (see Mammoth Cave) we both gave up and let our kids run wild. It was instantly given the distinction of the best museum on the trip.