Oh The Places You'll Go...St. Louis Edition

This weekend will require a couple posts, and I wanted to start with the family adventure piece.

We headed out on Saturday morning on the relatively short drive to St. Louis. (Six hours) I love traveling as a family, especially when Buds is able to be with us, and this trip was no exception.

We stopped at St. Louis Bread Company for lunch. It is known as Panera to the rest of the world, and The Buster was pretty sure he didn’t want to eat at “St. Louis Bread Company,” he wanted to eat at “Panera.” Monkey had to show him that all the catering materials said, “Panera” to reassure him that we weren’t attempting to trick him.

At lunch, the children were dismayed at how crowded the restaurant was. Buster zoomed out to the outdoor seating and came back in to reassure everyone that it was empty outside and we could eat out there! I swear, if it had been 10 degrees out, they still would have wanted to eat outside. It was, in fact, a gorgeous, sunny, blustery day, and we enjoyed being out of the car.

Once in St. Louis we chose to try out The Magic House, which Buds and I had taken Teresa, George, and Patty to many years ago when they came to spend the week with us in St. Louis as children. It has changed a great deal. Boz, one of my college friends, met us there with her crew. We all had a wonderful time: the children trying out the exhibits, and Boz and I talking our lips off.

Boz has a 12 y.o. son and a 10 y.o. daughter, and Yessa loved having a new buddy to hang out with. Yessa and J tried out all sorts of exhibits together.

Construction Zone

After the Magic House we made a quick stop at Ted Drewes for custard. ‘Cause if you have a chance to get Ted Drewes…you get Ted Drewes!

On Saturday, after Ted Drewes we headed to our hotel to check in and get ready for the celebration that was our reason for being in St. Louis. More on that in a separate post.

Sunday morning we were up and out of the hotel early because we were meeting up with others for breakfast and Buds and I wanted to take a jaunt down memory lane before then.

We were so excited to show the children Manhasset Village, the apartment complex where Steffer Ragsbottom and I lived when Buds and I met, and where Buds and I rented our first year of marriage.

We were both shaken, shocked, and saddened to drive up Eager Road, eager to show our history to the children, only to find the apartments had been completely razed. At first Buds was more distressed, but when I realized that it was thanks to living in those apartments that we met, I began to cry. It reminded us of the episode from Mad About You where Paul and Jamie don’t meet.

From there we drove to Buddie’s first apartment on Waterman Avenue to see if St. Louis was trying to wipe away every vestige of our history. Luckily, his apartment only looked like it was going to be torn down, but is actually going to be renovated.

From there we headed to a delicious, hilarious, raucous breakfast with more college friends: Barton, Argyle, and Boz. Uncle Bill’s Pancake House was new to Buds and me, but Argyle’s house when he lived in St. Louis was close to here.

After heartfelt good byes, our crew headed off to The Arch. We were able to immediately ride up the elevator to the top. Monkey’s imagination quickly got the best of her up there, so she, Yessa, and I only stayed a couple minutes. Buster enjoyed being up there quite a lot, so he and Buds stayed longer. As soon as they got out of the elevator from the return trip, we scurried over to the documentary about the building of The Arch.

I have tremendously fond memories of the first time I viewed this movie with Plummy in college all those years ago. Buster, Monkey, and I watched the whole movie while Buds and Yessa took a short nap. The movie fascinates me to this day. It was all white men in the video, many of them smoking cigarettes. It was expected that 13 men would lose their lives building The Arch, but none did.

After the documentary, we toured the gift shops, picked up our family photo, then a chilly walk back to the car, and we headed down the road, back to Nashville.

Here’s a video of the shots Buds took from our trip. Google puts together a nice montage.

And here are additional photos I just discovered on Buddie’s google+ account.