Saint Louis - Zoo / Turtle Park

So the pictures below are a complete reversal of the time spent at the zoo and Turtle Park, but I do not want to move them around.  After the science center, we drove over to the zoo, and had to park along the street a good walk from the entrance, and seeing as we hit the zoo at 3:00 PM, we only had 2 hours.  And the St. Louis Zoo is completely free, and that is really great!  So after walking in, I knew the musts for our family was the monkeys, the penguins and the new polar bear.  This tour and I think the rain cleared out the crowds and made for probably one of the best 2 hour zoo visits ever. 

 

We started by seeing some monkeys and one sitting right beside the glass for a good visit.  Magan loved the monkey and felt the trip was worth it just for this cute monkey.  But then we got to the Polar Bear area right at feeding time.  Ruby was asleep during all of this, and also kept Magan out of the penguin area which would have woken Ruby up...it was COLD!  Imagine that.  This was really one of the coolest penguin exhibits I have ever been to, if you want to count closeness to the penguins.  It was basically one big open area, and you could reach out and touch the penguins...easy...if not for the big guards in the area. 

 

After the penguins was the large swimming area for the Polar Bear, but he was still outside eating, and everything was empty and quiet...then the Huge Bear dove in and swam right up to the window looking for some more tasty treats.  It was really only me, Sam, Davis, Belle and Polar Bear.  We had him all to ourselves for a good long time, and had fun watching him swim and play.  I tried to get Magan in, but more guards would not allow this...

 

We then went on a long walkabout trail through the African region, really laid out very well, and many good opportunities to see the animals.  So we finally stopped at the hippos while everyone else went down to see them underwater.  Then, because it was closing time, we got to watch all 4 hippos get up and leave the water then leave the exhibit.  Fun watching hippos actually move...this has been rare in past.  Ruby had woken up by this time, and just squealed at the hippos...and the bird that flew right over our heads.  She loved the elephants too, then the stone sea lions back at the front of the park before we left. 

 

Outside the zoo near where we parked was "Turtle Park", so we decided to stop and...of course let Dave run around.  He told me how much Swimmers would like this park.  Sam was tired, and just laid back on the serpent bench. 

 

 

Saint Louis - Science Center

On this last day in St. Louis, we planned to visit their "world famous zoo", but the weather finally got in our way.  Storms had rolled in and it looked like would be in the area all day.  I was disappointed, but our backup plan was the Science Center, so after some breakfast, we headed out that way. 

 

We started our visit at the Planetarium, where we were able to listen to a scientist spend 30 minutes in the dark telling us about all the.....and when I woke up we looked around at all of the exhibits of space which were pretty cool.  Magan had Ruby during the planetarium experience, and I don't think her experience was as restful as mine. 

 

We next went to see all of the hands on exhibits, and the kids found some cool crafts where they could make a bracelet with an LED light on it.  Somewhere along the line, Sam got a little crazy with the scissors, and cut his finger pretty bad, and ended up needing some first aid bandaids for the rest of the day. 

 

After lunch, the clouds parted, and we thought we may still get to the zoo, so we still had one more attraction "Aliens, Robots, AI" that we wanted to see before we left.  So as Magan was changing a diaper, I took the others to this attraction which ended up costing extra.  And the Vacation fairies grabbed my credit card and paid for this extra attraction before Magan could come talk some sense into me.  On hindsight, the boys thought the area was REALLY GREAT...we saw C3PO, Ironman, and other cool robots...but it was definitely not what I was expecting for the additional cost.  Anyway, this became something Magan would pick on me about for the remainder of the trip.  Thanks Honey.  We also got to practice our scared faces running away from aliens and dinosaurs picture.  OK off to the zoo. 

 



 

Saint Louis - Busch Stadium / Union Station

So we can add another baseball park to the list, It was a beautiful day to visit Busch Stadium back downtown near the arch.  We parked at the nearby Union Station, and took the metro two stops to the stadium.  Inside the stadium, we visited the centerfield area for some free ice cream, a spin of the prize wheel (2 baseball cards, 1 stress ball, and 1 batting cage coupon).  Trying to get all the shopping completed, we next went into the team store.  Fun to shop for some shirts for the boys, but Ruby had enough, and let everyone know in a very crowded store that she was ready to go.

 

We then hit the Build a Bear workshop that was inside the park...and as always, this place sucked the money from me.  Davis, Belle, and Ruby got an animal, and even some Cardinals gear for their new animals.  Luckily I had some coupons, and Magan brought some gift cards to make it somewhat reasonable.  I justified the extra souvenirs because we got the cheap seats this time, instead of the club seats as in Dallas.  After filling up on our shopping, we went up and up and up to our seats in the 400 level.  But we were covered, we had a nice breeze, and a cool view of the arch. 

 

So Ruby was mine for most of the game, and is NOT still at all.  It is an interesting comparison to my game on 2nd row at Nationals to 4th level seating with 1.5 year old crawling all over you for 7 innings.  But I can't say I didn't like it, I got many smiles from that gal.  Not much of a scoring game, as the score remained 0 to 0 into the 7th, then 8th, then 9th inning...I bought the kids some dippin dots that were very interesting...Cherry dipping dots with pop rocks in it.  Pretty cool, and a winner for the kids.  Magan had taken Ruby by this time for a nap in her stroller.  And finally in the 10th inning with 0 to 0, we decided to leave. 

 

 

 

 

So back at Union Station, Magan showed us a really awesome section of this old train station where they had a light presentation on the ceiling, and we all sat back on some sofas in this lounge area and watched the lights and images dance across the ceiling, then the lightning erupt from the women sculptures along one wall, and finally a fireworks display (all lights) on the ceiling which was definitely a lot more that I expected.  This was neat to visit a place that Magan had such clear fond memories of when she was a kid.  The mall is probably not as hopping as it was when she was here before, but it was still very neat to get to see.  And Sam was tracking the ball game every where we went...Update 13th inning 0 to 0. 

 



 

 

After the Union Station, we went out to the Hard Rock Café for supper.  I had the legendary burger and it was great.  Game update...Mets score 1 run in the 14th, Cardinals hit solo HR in bottom of 14th to tie it back up.  So our meal came to an end, and the game was STILL GOING.  Not till we returned to the hotel did the Mets finally win 3 - 1 in the 18th inning.  5.5 hours.  I am glad we left in the 10th.