Wrapping up our Saint Louis Trip ~ Cahokia Indian Mounds and Lots of Food

On this trip we added two new states to our children's travels. This brings our kids' state travels up to 24 states. That really feels like an accomplishment. I hope to get them to one or two more states in the next year. It would be awesome to hit the halfway mark and be able to say we got them to half of America. The closest states to us that we haven't seen are Arkansas, Michigan and Rhode Island. To be honest, we do consider Connecticut to be one of the states that we have seen; however we only ate at KFC, stood in front of  Mark Twain's home (which was closed), and spent several hours in traffic. We usually only consider that we have done a state if we did at least one activity in the state. If we decide to see Rhode Island, we will have to stop in Connecticut and actually do something. 

It was a long 9.5 hour drive that started off with snowfall as we were leaving the mountains on twisting roads, but everyone did great. Thank goodness for headphones and Spotify.

So besides St. Louis, Missouri, we also visited the Cahokia Indian Mounds in Illinois. The remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico are preserved at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Within the 2,200-acre tract, located a few miles west of Collinsville, Illinois, lie the archaeological remnants of the central section of the ancient settlement that is today known as Cahokia. Unfortunately, the museum was closed, but there are some pretty good videos of it on YouTube.  We arrived on what seemed like a very windy day, but we later found out that it was just a typical day. Welcome to the plains! We were not used to experiencing so much sustained wind that wasn't part of a storm. My photos don't give this place justice. It was even bigger than the pictures suggest, and we could walk all around on top. Everyone climbed to the top, including Grandma. It was really beautiful, and we could even see the gateway arch way off in the distance. 

A little bit of advice if you are going to Cahokia. The museum closed in March for about a year so you might want to wait. Also, we followed Google Maps to get there instead of the signs on the highway. The signs on the highway take you all the way around East Saint Louis (which is actually in Illinois). It would take longer to follow the signs than to follow Google Maps, but it would be safer. Everything we read said to stay as far away from East Saint Louis as possible. Instead, Google Maps took us through a corner of it. Luckily, it was early in the day and the streets were pretty deserted. However, there was no mistake that we were in a desperately poor area where crime was very high (according to everything we read). Many buildings were dilapidated, with huge holes in them and walls missing. Honestly, we felt in more danger while lost in Cincinnati where a man was brandishing a gun and a gang war was about to break out at the intersection where we were sitting in our car. It is the only time in our marriage that I have told my husband to run a red light. Nonetheless, I am glad that my children have had a few opportunities to see the terrible conditions that some of our fellow beings live in. It is pathetic that so many live in such desperate conditions in such a rich country. Just sayin'.

We enjoyed lots of food in Saint Louis. We ate at Imos (famous for their Saint Louis pizza which tastes like a sweet sauce pizza on a saltine cracker), Fritz's (famous for their floats), Sugarfire BBQ (famous for their ribs), and Ted Drewes (famous for Concretes--a thick milkshake). Our favorite was the BBQ and the floats. 

Lastly, we stayed in the Clayton Hotel in the suburbs of Saint Louis. It was very safe and was probably a grand hotel back in the day. It had a lovely heated indoor/outdoor pool, buffet breakfast included in the price and lots of grandeur from marble floors to chandeliers throughout. The pool had a wall that you could swim under from the indoor to the heated outdoor pool. However, the service was a bit of a struggle. They didn't empty trash cans or do anything else for the room as most hotels don't anymore unless you stay there for more than three days. You could not carry breakfast out for late sleepers (Elijah and Grandma) and getting towels for the pool was impossible (even after we asked three times). I got lots of points that brought the price down on booking.com, but considering the original price for the rooms....I was not super impressed. The rooms were very clean and comfortable. For that I was grateful. 

I also wrote a post about the zoo here.

Blessings, Dawn

The Saint Louis Zoo

Our day at the Saint Louis Zoo was wonderful. This was one of the best zoos we have ever been to. The animals were active and there were lots of animals we had never seen or hadn't seen in a long time. There were several giraffes (my favorite), and my mother and Tim got to see their favorite animals (gorillas), too. The silver back was putting on a show of dominance and kept throwing things at the glass. He got a big reaction out of the crowd. 

I did a horrible job of taking pictures of our family on this trip. I didn't get a single group shot and mostly took pictures of my family's retreating backs. We all took turns at the zoo pushing Grandma in a rented wheel chair. It made the zoo so much more enjoyable for her, and we were able to move at a good pace and see the entire zoo.

The butterfly building was wonderful. Elijah caught a few. We spent lots of time in this area. 

This is the closest I have ever been to a hippo. I think he has sweet eyes. 

One sign of a good zoo is how content the animals are to go about their everyday business. At this zoo the animals seemed very content and were doing all of their normal activities from grooming to playing. This zoo is also free, which is a huge plus. 

After the zoo, we went out to dinner at Red Robin and onto Ikea. Yes, Ikea...we live more than two hours from one, and it kept tempting us as we drove past it.  We only bought a few small decor things for Rebekah's room and gifts for my other's birthday.

We wrapped up the night with a quick stop at Ted Drewes on Route 66. They are famous for their concretes (which are very thick milkshakes). We got two and tested them out. They were really very good, and I am pretty sure you could have held it upside down without it falling out, just as they advertise. 

One more post to go about our trip. If you are just tuning in, the other Saint Louis posts are below:

The Gateway Arch

The City Museum

Blessings, Dawn

 

Saint Louis Trip ~ The Gateway Arch and The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis

We had the pleasure of exploring two very different types of buildings while we were in Saint Louis. They had very different architectural styles and were intended for very different purposes. However, both very much represent the history of Saint Louis.

Gateway Arch National Park is the smallest national park, but it is truly lovely. It is a beautiful 90 acres of green space and a manmade lake. We decided not to spend the money taking the tram up the arch. Some of us are afraid of heights and others of us are afraid of tiny spaces...so it wasn't a good investment for us. The free museum under the arch was truly impressive.  It was filled with history of the area, Lewis and Clarks travels, and information about how the arch was built. We also enjoyed walking around the park and just taking in the tremendous size of the arch (630 feet high). It was neat to walk right up and touch it. 

 Another beautiful building we explored while we were in Saint Louis was the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis.  This is the most amazing church building I have every been in to date. It is Romanesque style on the outside and Byzantine style on the inside. The inside is jaw dropping with over 83,000 square feet of mosaics in Italian marble and glass tessarae tiles. There are 41.5 million tiles in the mosaics. Pope John Paul II designated the Cathedral as a Basilica in 1997.

While we were walking around staring at the ceiling, an elderly woman approached us to compliment  the kids on their interest in the ceilings. She was a parishioner and said she was used to teens sitting in the pews with their heads in their phones while their parents looked around.  I told her that Elijah was the one that had requested to come and had placed this activity on his list of things to do on vacation. She was impressed and went on to tell us all about growing up in the Basilica. Her father had even been one of the mosaic workers before going off to fight in World War II.  The ceiling in the picture below was the one he worked on. It was fascinating hearing her stories about growing up attending church there. 

I truly felt like I was in a grand cathedral in Europe. I am glad we got to go to both locations. 

Next up... The Saint Louis Zoo.

Blessings, Dawn

The City Museum in Saint Louis, Missouri

 We just returned from our vacation to Saint Louis, Missouri. One of the things we were most awed by was the City Museum. The City Museum is like nothing I have ever seen or experienced before. It is an entire giant playground made out of recycled objects that stretches over an old 10 story factory. There are indoor and outdoor playgrounds (although the outdoor spaces were closed because of rain while we were there). Honestly, that was fine because there was no way we could do or see everything inside, let alone the outside, in the four hours we allotted to the museum.

Outdoor spaces overlooking the parking lot. 

In the middle of the museum is an old 10 story factory shaft that has been converted into multiple slides, one starting at the 10th story, another at the  7th story, and yet another at the 5th story. It also overlooks the cave system below the slides. This place is just incredible and very unique....and a bit terrifying. Rebekah, Tim, Elijah and I did the 5 story slide, and Elijah did the 10 story slide. They emptied out into darkness that you had to feel your way out of and back to the stair system.

This picture is really dark, but the spiral shapes coming out of the wall are
the 10 story and 5 story slides. 

Photo taken off the Internet to give you a better view of the slides.

The caves were amazing, too. There were many areas that were too tight, even for my slender teen children. I mostly stood in the middle and watched (listening for Elijah's deep voice), while they attempted to squeeze through lots of tight spots. They got slightly stuck a few times. 

There were so many climbing areas. They even had an air vents area that the kids could get into. There were climbing areas under the floor, above our heads and on all sides. Keeping track of them was a huge undertaking. I am thankful that we all had cell phones to call each other. 

This photo is looking down through the slides shaft area
to the cave system.

My athletic girl was in her element.

My pictures just don't give this place justice. Rebekah and Elijah had a blast. Rebekah absolutely loved the place, although she said it was anxiety producing from the respects of trying to stay together (which she wanted to do). It just wasn't possible to stay together all the time because so many tunnels were too tight or scary for some of us to fit through. You never knew where or on what floor of the museum you would come out on. You will notice that there are no pictures of my husband and mother. We lost track of them immediately. My mother found a floor that had lots of art work and wandered around there for much of the time, and my husband just walked around areas that didn't require crawling. My knees would have you know that they didn't appreciate all of the crawling we did. I have plenty of bruises. I did like doing something completely different and unique. It felt like an accomplishment.

However, there were moments when I felt like the picture above. As Rebekah said, the place is anxiety producing and pushes you out of your comfort zone. I don't mind heights but have always been a bit afraid of enclosed slides. I am not a huge fan of tight places, and I really like to know where my family is at any given moment. I would have gone nuts in there when my kids were younger. I did see one mother handling five kids from about the age of 4 up to early teens. She had them all decked out with cell phones in small cases attached to their chests and one with a walkie talkie. She was tracking them on the app Life 360 and in almost constant communication with the 4 year old. The website does say that you should expect to lose your children in the museum, but I didn't realize that so much of the museum would not be accessible to full-size people. About 30 percent of the museum my slender teens couldn't squeeze through.

I wish they at least had had signs telling us what floor we were on or where sections exited so we could find each other faster. The final verdict on the museum was a mix in the family.  Tim and Dear Husband said that they would never want to go back and could have done without the experience but were okay doing it the once for family's sake. Elijah and I thought it was a unique and mostly fun experience and glad that we went. Rebekah liked it a lot and would happily go back, but probably would enjoy it even more if she was there alone and not trying to hang with anyone...just explore. My Mother said she was glad she went to see what it was all about, but she had expected to be able to join in some of the activities. She could not and so was disappointed in the lack of accessibility. 

Next time I will tell about the gorgeous Cathedral and the Gateway Arch.

Blessings, Dawn