Saturday, July 24, 2010
We began our fun-filled day at the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. This place was obviously designed especially for kids.
As you can see from the pictures, you can climb and play on everything! Greg and Sabrina climbed through wire tubes, went down slides with cushioned rollers and played on everything. I did a lot of watching and laughing when they got stuck!
The place was packed, as you can imagine for a Saturday and to top it off, someone was getting married there that day!
It wasn't the kind of museum you'd normally think of. Yes it had stuff to look at, but cool stuff, not the normal boring stuff in a museum.
There was a little shop that made shoe laces on an old fashioned kind of machine. Really cool to watch, and LOUD!!!!
On one level there was a huge room with all these buckets for kids to stack and play with. I really enjoyed this room the best. Mainly because it was the best air-conditioned room in the whole place and because it had really comfy chairs for the tired parents to sit and watch.
After having visited the Arch just the day before, Greg and Sabrina crafted their own arch out of buckets and stood proudly to have their picture taken!
I hated to leave this room!
Sabrina found a friend she could really connect with!
She loves her Tae Kwon Do classes and sometimes the kids get to sumo wrestle during the last half of the class.
She thought this was funny!
Once on the roof top, there was more stuff to climb on! There was even a ferris wheel on top of this 11 story building. Greg and Sabrina rode it, but I did not. You guess it! The hurl factor!!
There was a fountain with stepping stones. The object was to walk through the fountain sprays on the stones and not get wet. The kids I saw were actually in the water and it smelled really bad so I wouldn't let Sabrina in the water. Besides, once she caught a whiff of the water, she didn't really WANT to go in!
I really enjoyed this place!
It had a school bus hanging over the edge of the building so you could walk through it and look down to the street level. They also had an airplane set up the same way at a lower level.
When we were about ready to leave, I asked Sabrina where her cell phone was. She had clipped it on her waist band when we left the motel and it was not there when she checked. She was really upset and we sent Greg to the car to make sure it hadn't fallen off in the car.
While we waited, I asked a museum worker if they had a lost and found area. She said, "It's right here." I asked if anyone had turned in a cell phone in a leopard case. She turned around and in a split second, she handed it to me! Sabrina was so happy, she started crying!
We decided to have lunch at one of those trendy "St Louis only" type of restaurants. Arby's.
It was close to 2pm so it wasn't busy. Which turned out to be a good thing. We discovered they had XM radio and it was tuned to an 80's station. Greg and I were singing along to old songs like Devo's "Whip it!" and other classics from White Snake, Toto and Tiffany. Sabrina thought we were weird, but laughed appropriately at our silliness!
After lunch we went to the botanical gardens. This place was beautiful!
They have a geodesic dome area called the Climatron, similar to the Botanical Center in Des Moines.
I swear it had to be 105 degrees with near 100% humidity. The second you step in, you are immediately soaked with sweat.
They had a scavenger hunt for kids called Dino-quest. As you walk through the Climatron, the map directs you to look for hidden dinosaurs.
Except for being really hot and sweaty, this was a really awesome place!
Finally, we were done site seeing and went back to the motel to get cleaned up for dinner. Taco Bell.
We can't even eat anywhere different while on vacation!
After dinner, Sabrina begged us to let her into the motel's fitness center. That little squirt ran a half mile on the tread mill! I think she wants one for Christmas now!
Stay tuned for the third and final day of "St Louis Vacation 2010!"
