We stayed at an awesome hotel--right downtown on 4th and Market the Drury is in walking distance to so many great things including the arch and Busch stadium, and it has free hot breakfast, which is always a plus. I am a fan of buildings with a lot of history, so it's pretty neat that the Drury Plaza is the old fur traders building. The rooms have tall ceilings and a lot of windows.
I love cities that have a great public transit system. We made the mistake of taking a cab out to the Loop (I won't reveal how much that costs), but took the Metro Links back, which was only $2. You can take this to all the sights around town, including Forest Park, which not only similar to Central Park in New York, but bigger. All the places in the park are free and we took full advantage of it! The history museum had some great exhibits, especially the ones on Charles Lindbergh and the 1904 World's Fair. Afterward, we headed to the zoo which always reminds me of the zoo from Lady & The Tramp. Isn't it cool how a zoo can be like a regular park? Maybe I'm too easily impressed.
It's a beautiful place. The hills and trees and flowers are enough of a reason to visit, but the animal exhibits are pretty impressive as well. Maybe it was just the time of day we were there (1pm central), but all the animals were up and active. I loved the exhibit of the giant turtles!
It was the last series of baseball's regular season and our beloved Reds were in town playing the Cardinals. We walked to Busch Stadium twice while we were there to see our team lose. Mike Shannon, one of St. Louis' radio announcers, guaranteed that it would be a "fun weekend" to see some baseball, but I'm guessing he meant just for Cardinal fans. I thought it was a nice stadium. The workers were all friendly and helpful, and there really isn't a bad seat (or standing area) in the house.
If you get a chance to see the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica please do. Even if you're not Catholic, it's a pretty impressive sight. As long as there's not a service going on they don't mind if you come in to take pictures. Almost every inch of the place has amazing mosaics that glitter and sparkle in the light.
So, all in all we had a fantastic trip, even though we missed the boys quite a bit. The first thing I noticed when I got back was how their voices sounded different. We talked to them on the phone while we were gone, but they sounded older, more mature than I remembered. Maybe I'm crazy. It'd definitely nice to get away every once in a while, but it's certainly nice to come home to their silly monkey faces.
THANK YOU GRANDMA & GRANDPA FOR TAKING CARE OF THE BOYS!!