Road trip to St. Louis, Missouri

Wow, time flies when you’re having fun! Oh well … I promised to write about St. Louis, so here goes.

During our time at the KOA, we had Tuesdays and Wednesdays off which just happened to coincide with our 37^th anniversary on September 1^st. We wanted to do more than sit around the campground for our special day, so we decided to take a trip to St. Louis, Missouri to see the famous Gateway Arch. We left on Tuesday, August 31^st, stopping along the way in Rantoul, Illinois. Wayne spent about 8 weeks there back in 1972 in the Air Force for his Tech School training in Fire Fighting. He was looking forward to seeing the museum there, as the base (along with many others) had been decommissioned years ago. Although we enjoyed the Air Museum, it only had one fire engine. True to its name, there were tons of aircraft … interesting, but not what he had hoped. Prior to leaving Rantoul, we had a yummy lunch at Ott’s Drive-In. I found this little gem of a diner on www.roadfood.com. 

We spent the night in a “dog-friendly” hotel … yeah, right! We found the motel on Orbitz, which somehow neglected to mention that there was an additional “pet fee” of $20 charged by the hotel, and they only put people with pets in smoking rooms! The fee I could handle, but the room – I think not! The guy at the desk made some lame excuse that “some non-smoking people have allergies to animals”. How stupid is that? Smokers have allergies as too! Anyway, I convinced him that Lucy is very small and doesn’t shed, so he gave up on that and gave us a non-smoking room. That evening we lucked out again and had an amazing dinner at a restaurant next to the hotel named Lotawata Creek Southern Grill in Fairview Heights, Illinois. They had a dessert called “Deep Fried Banana Pudding”. Oh my word, it was as big as a dinner plate! Between the two of us we maybe ate a third of it.

Next morning it was off to the Arch. Before we could visit the Arch however, little Miss Lucy had to go to doggie day care. We took her to “Groomingdales” in St. Louis. She just looked at us through the gate like “You have got to be kidding … you’re not leaving me here with all these strange dogs are you?”

 Once we left Lucy in good company, we went to the absolutely amazing Gateway Arch of St. Louis. Wow … that’s about all that can be said! It is much bigger than we thought. We bought our tickets to go up in the Arch and fortunately, we had a very short wait. We had been told we could wait hours, but it was only about 10 minutes.  They had one of the elevator cars in the waiting area so prospective riders could assess their willingness to ride to the top. Apparently some people with claustrophobia take one look and decide to forego the experience. Bad decision according to my claustrophobic husband. He wasn’t bothered one bit.

Once at the top, you are very aware you aren’t on a flat floor, but in the top of the arch. The view from 630’ up was amazing. We were able to see Busch Stadium where the St. Louis Cardinals play. Of course we could see a lot more than that, but baseball is where it’s at, right? Anyway, we had a wonderful time in the area. 

On the way home that afternoon, we stopped for lunch in Springfield, Illinois, just one mile from Abraham Lincoln's Presidential Library.  JUST ONE MILE! I wasn't frustrated or disappointed that we didn't have time to stop and see it ... oh, no, of course not. Ahem! If you believe that, you will believe anything.

If you want to see more pictures of our visit to St. Louis, check out the ones I posted on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060551&id=1130964562&l=24742c212c.