Family Vacation - Day 4 & 5

Sunday morning, Levi woke me up bright and early after one of the worst nights of sleep our family had had in a long, long time. He wanted to go to the park down the street, so we got dressed, I got a big cup of coffee and off we went.

The four of us went to brunch at Longman & Eagle, a favorite of ours in the Logan Square neighborhood.

I finally went for it this time - I ordered the fried chicken, waffles and sweet potatoes. DEEEEElicious!

Back at the house, some of the extended family had gathered so we visited with them for a while. Then it was time to get ourselves packed up and out of there. Andy and Lia were trying to pack for their honeymoon and we knew we had six hours on the road ahead of us - so long, Chicago!

Thank goodness the boys slept for a chunk of our drive. They needed naps and Ben and I needed the peace and quiet.

Hello St. Louis! We settled into our hotel room and then walked over to the arch. Ben and I had both been to the arch before, but I was still impressed at its size and how shiny it was. Noah had learned a bit about it in school but I think it was bigger than he had expected it to be. Levi was tired and thirsty and wanted to play hide-and-seek on the big grassy area under the arch.

We spent some time near the river and disappointed the boys because we wouldn't pay $140 for a five minute helicopter ride.

We stayed at a Drury Inn and cannot say enough good things about it. Free parking, free popcorn and pop until 10pm, free breakfast, and free hot food from 5:30-7:30 each night. Plus they had a decent pool and the rooms were clean!  The boys thoroughly enjoyed their popcorn and pop snack each night before bed. 

Monday morning we loaded up on breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to the City Museum. 

We'd heard about it from other people, didn't quite know what we were getting into and now that we've been there we still can't quite explain it! It's amazing. A true adventure awaits around every turn.

The roof was open because the weather was decent, but rain was in the forecast, so we headed up there right away. I had my camera and phone with me for that part of our visit, but I quickly realized that lugging my camera, or even my phone, wasn't going to work.

You can climb and climb and climb and then slide and slide and slide. You can crawl, scoot, slide, slither, spin and duck. There's a huge praying mantis on the roof, you know...just because. There's a bus that juts off the top of the building, some airplanes do the same thing - and you can climb to and on and in all of it.

The Ferris wheel was awesome because it's located on top of a building. When you come over the top on it, you can't see anything below you, at all. I'm a total wimp so it scared me A LOT the first couple times around, but then I calmed down and it was really, really cool.

In the photo below, on the left side there's a big wire cage cylinder going up toward the praying mantis. We climbed up that entire thing and then you could slide down right under where you climbed. This place is not for people who cannot handle tight spaces.

Inside the roof, you could climb down the inside of it. Ben managed to make it, but it looked pretty tight at times. Noah's in the orange shirt and Ben's above him, squeezing through. :-)

At lunch, I saw a mom with knee pads on - like volleyball knee pads - and I kind of smiled. But at that point my knees were doing ok. Most of our climbing hadn't happened on our knees yet. By the end of the day, I was longing for knee pads. 

Two busy pilots!

Inside I snapped just a couple photos. This was one of the first big slides we came to.

It was like a true wonderland. Or maybe more like an imagination gone wild and brought to reality. There was a lot of beauty mixed in with the metal and concrete we climbed through. The slides were smooth, the mosaic tile work was amazing, the true sense of adventure and freedom was oddly alarming and exhilarating at the same time. There were times we were places in the ceiling we weren't sure we were supposed to be, but it all worked out just fine. There were slides that took us places we didn't know existed and it was fun to simply go and find out where we'd end up.

I know we didn't see the entire place. We were there for seven hours, we had fun and were worn out when we left. At the end, Ben and I looked at each other and declared that we'd never felt so old. But then we laughed because it had truly been a fun day. There was also a craft/art area, an area for smaller kiddos, a vintage metal train for kids to ride on, decent food to eat, a huge pipe organ and more. You should go - because the place cannot be explained, it must be experienced. I have a feeling we'll go back again some day.