Meet Me in St. Louis

Back towards the beginning of June, we began a two week trip that included 2 days driving to St. Louis, spending time with G'pa and family there, then flying with G'pa to Florida to meet my sister and her family and spend a week at Disney World, and eventually flying back to St. Louis so we could then drive home for 2 more days.

Whew.

After 2 fun-filled days in the van trekking across our beloved country and slowly moving out of the arid climate to which we are accustom and into the humid environment to which we would soon adapt, we arrived in beautiful St. Louis, MO, better known as the home of G'pa!

We had much fun with him. The girls and Karen had never seen his home there, so everyone enjoyed exploring his house and neighborhood AND getting to see where he works. The most obvious thing to all of us about his office was the complete and utter lack of anything personal. No pictures, no photos, just blank walls and a big white board.

We told him that before we left, we were going to have to add a little personality to his office. At the very least some evidence that he has kids and grandkids. And we did perk it up a little. It has more than just beige walls, anyway.

One delightful day while in St. Louie we headed downtown to see the Arch. The girls had only seen it driving by, never been in it. So we nabbed some tickets and got in line to ride the little eggs up inside the legs of the arch.That's the spacious little egg. Five people can fit in it. This next picture makes it look like it's all cool and space-agey inside.
In reality, it feels like you're stuffing yourself into an over-sized tuna can...with the same amount of design flair.

Our thrill was multiplied in that while we were waiting in the "staging area" to be called down to the loading area, they stopped the tram from running for some vague mechanical difficulty. So instead of waiting 10 minutes, we waited an hour. By the time we actually got up to the top, we only stayed about 5 minutes and we were all ready to head back down in the Mork from Ork mobiles. We did see lovely views of downtown, though.Having emerged unscathed, we headed to another favorite downtown spot, the City Museum.
I've blogged about this place previously here. It's very unique, and very fun for the girls. One thing we found this time that we missed before was the 10-story corkscrew slide. We climbed all the way up to the top of the building and slid down what was at one time a shoe chute when the building functioned as a shoe factory.

This old man was very dizzy after several stories of corkscrew turns. I wobbled a bit as I got up but did NOT toss my cookies, so my dignity is still intact.

Here's Emily at the giant-sink-drainish-thingies.
(sorry...blogger is having trouble uploading videos, so you have to click each link to watch)

VIDEO: Emily Drain

And we all loved the human hamster wheel.
It looks like it should be easy, but it's very disorienting when you're inside. You can't tell how fast you should go and you continually feel like you're falling...and as you can see you usually are.

VIDEO: Hamster Wheel 1

We did get better at it. Finally figured out you have to look up, because that's where your headed, so to speak. If you look down, you just fall.

VIDEO: Hamster Wheel 2

We made G'pa try, too.

VIDEO: Hamster Wheel - G'pa

Ouch.

He was fine. Really.

Coming soon, snippets from the House of Mouse in Orlando!