Wednesday and Thursday: Louisville to St. Louis

Wednesday we drove to St. Louis.  But on the way we had the pleasure of visiting Tom's mom's hometown of New Athens, Illinois.  We went to the house where she was born and grew up, and even met the young lady who grew up there...her grandparents bought the house from Tom's grandparents.  It was fun to see the small town and imagine that it was probably about the same size when Mom lived there, but there are a few new features like a new school and a few new businesses.

We enjoyed crossing the Mississippi River and seeing The Arch and the beautiful skyline.  St. Louis has many beautiful areas, but we were also shocked by the many abandoned buildings that have been sitting burned out for many years.  I know there are areas like that in LA, but it seemed there were so many more here. 

Tom had chosen a hotel near the River that gave us easy access to many fun things to see and do.  Wednesday night we had a great pasta dinner in the Italian District called The Hill.  Then I did laundry... sorting it back into the bags would happen the second night in St. Louis.

Thursday morning we were planning to go up The Arch.  Myssie had suggested we buy tickets in advance, and Tom had reserved ours for 9:10 a.m.  But we didn't leave our hotel with enough time to get there, so Tom dropped me off near The Arch so I could run and get the tickets while he parked.  Thankfully I was able to get our reservation moved to 9:20 a.m....but where were the lines?  There was no one in line, so I was beginning to think we didn't need advance reservations to save time.  However, after we came down from The Arch, a little after 10 a.m., the place was packed and there were very long lines.  Thanks for the tip, Myssie!  As we left the parking lot for The Arch, we drove right next to the Mississippi River, which was actually up over the street that we were driving on!

After The Arch we drove to Cahokia Mounds, an archaeological site of ancient Indians (inhabited 1000 years ago).  You need to know that Tom is very interested in ancient Indian sites:  our last major vacation in 2002 (before kids) we visited many Indian sites in the Southwest U.S. (Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and at least three others that I've forgotten the name of).  I had had ENOUGH Indian sites for a while...so Tom kept it simple this trip with just one Indian site visit, at Cahokia.  It was quite impressive, and the museum is very interesting and well done.  But the climb up the largest mound would be too much for Natalie, so I stayed in the van with Natalie and Dominik and we jammed to Signing Time CDs.  Tom, Annina, Lukas and Konrad climbed to the top of the mound and enjoyed the view.

But wait, there's more!  Since it was hot, we decided to not go to Grant's Farm (also, too similar to Conner Prairie that we had already seen) or the Mississippi River Locks at Alton.  Instead, we went on a (free) tour of the Budweiser Brewery.  There was lots of air conditioning, a very interesting tour of a brewery and bottling plant (the kids loved it!), the architecture was beautiful...and there was free beer at the end.  Mind you, Tom and I are beer snobs so we don't drink Bud, but we enjoyed the more refined flavors of their American Ale and Amber Bock.

It was nice to spend two nights in the same hotel, the last time we'll do it on this trip. :(  Now we're heading home as fast as we can without killing ourselves or our children (only 4-7 hours of driving each day).