Our Trip to St. Louis, MO.

We took our first family vacation this year, a One-Day trip to St. Louis, MO.

Kevin's parents were nice enough to loan us their car for the trip, which was a HUGE help. (My car is lucky to make it back & forth to work all day.) We left around 2 a.m. and drove down to Louisville, KY and had to stop at a Wal-Mart around 4 a.m. to get something for Tsyler to drink his milk from. We took I-64 west and headed toward the Mississippi River. The best part about the hour we chose to leave was that the sun rose to our backs, instead of in our face. A few stops for gas & food and by 9:30 a.m. we were safely crossing the river.

Genesis says, "Look Mommy!!! IT'S a RAINBOW!!!" when he sees the Gateway Arch as we're crossing. I found a place to park, changed the boys out of their pajamas in the back of the Escape, and then let them out to play along the river's edge.

We started across the street and up the steps to the base of the Arch, and it's a great view being right under the structure. I couldn't believe we were really there!

They didn't wanna leave the river's edge. they love throwing rocks in the water and playing in the gravel. I love this shot below of the boys, has to be one of my very favorites from the entire trip. Even have it as my "Timeline Cover Photo" on good ol' Facebook: Geneva Watson

We walked up and seen the base of the Arch, and it was VERYYYY hot outside. I think it reached 92 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We tried to stay in the shade or air conditioning as much as possible. :) there's a really gorgeous park surrounding the Gateway Arch Museum, so we took a lil walk. there were lots of people walking dogs and mingling with their families. We got there earlier than most of the other tourists.

As the day got later (and hotter) we decided we should go out into the city and see what else there was to offer. Lunch was the next priority. We stopped in to the "Riverfront Helicopter Tours" trailer and see how much a ride in the pretty yellow helicopter would cost our little family. The smallest tour was $35 per person for a 2-4 minute tour around the Arch. The best tour was $150 a person and took you all the way down by the Anheiser-Busch part of town. We couldn't bring ourselves to do it, so we got back in the car and left our original parking place by the Mississippi River. As We pulled away, I drove upon a really awesome Graffiti wall:

I hopped out to get my picture in front of this group of eyeballs, which i found to be pretty interesting. When i got back in, Kevin was standing up out of the sun roof taking panorama shots on his phone.

I took a TON of pictures on my camera, and out of all of them, this is my favorite of the graffiti.

Apparently it was from an event called "Paint Louis" and the wall must've went on for more than a mile. Probably longer for all i know. I love the pig, the dumpster and propane tank in the foreground, and then you can see all the different layers of the paint, where different artists have come back and tagged over the others. Pretty awesome. I loved it. Some other things we seen while we were in town and driving around looking for somewhere to eat were their MLB stadium, their NFL stadium, and the Anheiser-Busch place. We also walked through the museum under the arch.

We couldn't decide on what to do together as a family, so Daddy and Buggy went to drive around town and Genesis and Mommy (me) went up to the top of the Arch. It was an intense ride up for myself, but Genesis did better than I expected. He did pretty good for a 3 year old. The view from the top was insanely beautiful.

We didn't spend very long at the top, and when we got to the bottom, I bought us all a few souvenirs and went out to wait for Kevin and Tsyler to pick us back up by the river front. This time of day, the sun was on the opposite side of the arch so the pictures looked entirely different.

It was decided that I would do the first part of the driving so that Kevin could drive during the darkest hours. The sun was setting to our backs, the boys all took a nap, and we headed back toward Ohio. I don't think we noticed the time switch until we were on our way back, so the hours it took to drive are uncertain to me.

My cell phone said it was before midnight when we all got home. I had an appointment to go to first thing the next morning for a deodorant study (which was the whole reason we only stayed for the afternoon). Then, later that afternoon, after I cleaned, filled up and returned Sharm & Old's Escape, I went and got the boys some new clothes for the portrait session we had coming up that same day at Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park. Stay tuned for that post!!!