Mike & Kris - Enjoying The Ride

After eating and drinking our way through Kansas City, we arrived to steaming, hot weather in St. Louis on Friday afternoon.   The RV park was just a chipped up  asphalt parking lot but it was within two miles of downtown and we were happy.  After arriving and setting up, we took a short “trolley” ride to downtown to investigate and buy our tickets to the top of the arch.  And thank goodness we did because the only available tickets left were for Sunday which was our last day in St. Louis.  More about that later.

So Friday afternoon included a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi River and a long walk in the riverfront/downtown area.  We finished up with a great dinner at the Sweetfire BBQ restaurant with a line out the door.  First night in the books.

We decided we really missed the Coors tour in Denver, so we got an early start on Saturday morning and headed over to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery to beat the crowd.  There really was a ton of people there for their free beer and we admit that we joined them!  I was sold on the fact that we got to see the Clydesdales and they were beautiful.  We even got some stable pictures for you Jill–something to aspire to.  After this we headed up river a way to the Melvin Price Lock and Dam facility.  It is the 26 out of 29 locks on the Mississippi and it is the only one that offers tours.  So cool….they took us to the top and there was a huge barge coming through at the time.  We enjoyed everything about it.  I learned that these locks are what makes the river passable year-round.  Otherwise they would not be able to use the river for shipping about six months out of every year.  Finally, we ended out day on the other side of the river looking across to St. Louis.  This park is in Illinois and they have this fantastic viewing point that has amazing views of the river, the arch, and the city.  It is easy to see why this is our feature picture–it is a beautiful site.

Sunday was our day to travel to the top of the arch.  You get into a tiny 5 person tram car that it attached to seven other tram cars.  It is tight inside!!  It moves up the arch like a ferris wheel.  At the top you are 650 feet high and you get to look out these tiny windows at everything as far as the eye can see.  The movie they show of them building the arch is not to be missed.  What an amazing place.  We ended our St. Louis adventure by watching a baseball game in Busch stadium.  They have a place called Cardinal Village which is right across the street from the stadium and is the perfect pre-function hang out place. It is a beautiful stadium with great fans.  St. Louis played the Washington Nationals and most of the fans stayed until the very end.  St. Louis is on the list of places to come back to.