The beginning of our Midwest journey was in St. Louis, so this served as our gateway into the Midwest, a little opposite of how the city was historically seen. We happily visited our friends, John and Kelly Crowe and spent the morning at Top Golf and then hanging out at their beautiful new home while the boys swam at their community pool with JT (their son). Because we were enjoying the time so much with them, we arrived late for our scheduled tour of the Arch, but were fortunate that it was not a busy day and were able to go right in when we arrived. Then we walked over to Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals for the contest with the Oakland Athletics that day. We had spent the day away from our hotel with all our supplies in Brett's backpack. When we arrived, the Cardinals have signs posted that no backpacks are allowed, so the options were throwing away his backpack or running 1+ miles back to our hotel to drop it off and then run back to the ballpark. Option number two was selected and Brett was off running. The A's won a convincing ballgame, 7-3, sending us back to the hotel with smiles on our faces. The hotel wasn't exactly the nicest, but it was downtown within walking distance of the Arch and stadium.
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| The Arch at night, illuminated. |
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| Rogers Hornsby statue. |
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| George Sisler statue. |
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| Lou Brock, the speed burner, statue. |
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| Cool Papa Bell. |
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| One of the most intimidating pitchers, Bob Gibson. |
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| Stan the Man Musial. |
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| The Wizard of Oz, Ozzie Smith. |
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| Red Schoendienst. |
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| Enos Slaughter. |
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| Dizzy Dean |
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| The oldest statue and most beloved: Musial. |
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| An A's Family at the oppositions ballpark. |
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| Griffin does the robot, leaning back and balancing. |
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| Matt Chapman up to bat. |
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| Matt Olson vs Jack Flaherty. |
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| Future Hall of Famer, Yadier Molina in his home park. |
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| A new ballpark brings more construction. |
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| Great seats behind home plate...we arrived early enough to enjoy them before the Cardinal fans arrived. |
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| Old Busch Stadium scoreboard rescued for the inner concourse of the new stadium. |
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| Boys surround Carlos Martinez's large bobblehead. |
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| Across the street, before we learned of Brett's backpack fate. |
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| The Arch is quite the tall structure. |
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| Surely, Lewis and Clark dabbed their way to the West. |
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| Mississippi flood stage, Brett recalls parking there. |
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| Stuck on top due to technical difficulties, Joy needed a massage. |
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| Studying the Old Courthouse where the Dred Scott decision took place. |
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| The city of Saint Louis from the Arch. |
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| Illinois across the Missippi from St. Louis. |
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| Might as well relax while we are stuck on top for a while. |
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| We are 630 feet in the air? Wow, glad it isn't windy. |
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| Amazing what you can see through the windows--Courthouse. |
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| Busch Stadium--you could see the Cardinals take batting practice. |
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| Ready to enter our little car to go to the top? |
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| The new entrance to the Arch. |
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| Ready to go golfing? JT, John, Kelly joined us. |
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| Joy's backswing of power. |
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| John demonstrates some technique for Kelly. |
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| Playing games in the lobby of our hotel. |
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| That statue is usually towering over the parking lot fully submerged. |
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| Checking out the Arch the day we arrived. |
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| Our hotel was close to the entrance to the Arch park. |
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| Outside our hotel room, we could see one of the bridges. |
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| Spotting the Arch on the way from the airport to our hotel. |
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| Dad, looks like you could use a massage? |
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| Boys, I wouldn't get in the way of Mom's swing! |
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| Flying Southwest has it's advantages when it comes to how many bags you can bring...but will they fit in our rental car? |
