Our Trip to "Sink" Louis

We spent Memorial Day weekend in St. Louis and have a wonderful vacation.  I think Shane and I have already decided that we’re going to go again next spring.  There’s so much to do there and we feel like we barely scratched the surface of all St. Louis has to offer.

The reason behind the trip was the wedding of a college friend.  Shane and I wanted to go, but knew because the wedding wasn’t until the evening hours, that the kids wouldn’t last if they came.  So we invited my mom to come along to help babysit.  She was up for it.  So the trip was a go!  But we didn’t stop there.  We asked my sister to come, and after she switched a day at work, she was able to come down with us on Thursday, but she had to leave Sunday morning so she could go home to take a nap.  Not a big deal since we were leaving Sunday as well.  Then we invited Shane’s parents to join us too.  They were up for it, but had to leave on Saturday morning to get back for a wedding they were invited to.  And, lastly, my dad joined in the mix just a few days before we left.  Our little trip had turned into quite the undertaking.

Bethany and I had been counting down the days until "Sink" Louis and talked about what we going to do everyday.  So you may be wondering why I'm referring to St. Louis as Sink Louis.  Well, that's because that's what Bethany called it.  Shane and I thought it was pretty cute, so that's what we started calling it.  We had four days planned with exciting things, and before we knew it, it was time to go.

Thursday morning came and I got up really early.  Like 5:00 or something crazy like that.  I think that's the earliest I've been up this year.  The goal was to leave around 8:00.  Everyone met at our house and our three car caravan was on the road around 8:30.  We weren't doing too bad on time. :-)

The drive down was pretty uneventful.  Unless you count the two bathroom stops we had to make for Bethany.  It's only a three hour drive.  However, we made a rookie mistake and forgot to take her potty before we left the house.

Peacefully, I rode with Amanda in the lead car on the way down.  Shane and my mom were in her car with the kids.  At one point, Shane informed me that I was, "having the time of my life" without the kids.  While it was nice, I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the time of my life. :-)  My view for most of the drive.

I knew we were getting close, when the Arch came into view.  I got very excited to see it the first glimpse.

It was getting closer.

Really close now!

Another possible title for this trip could have been, the GPS unit that couldn't.  Our trusty GPS, we call her Sam, steered us wrong a couple of times.  We got off at the wrong exit and Sam couldn't recalculate. She just wanted us to make U-turns.  So we pulled into a McDonald's parking lot and I hopped in the front seat to get it all sorted out.  Now, it's not all Sam's fault.  We usually have the American woman's voice (Samantha), but Amanda wanted something with an accent, so I switched it to the Australian male's voice.  And Lee was the one who led us astray.  So after that minor detour, we got to our lunch destination:

Fitz's is a restaurant (obviously, just look at the sign), but they also bottle and make their own root beer, cream soda, and a few other kinds of pop.  And the neat thing is the bottling line is right in the restaurant, so you can watch them make it through these big glass windows, kind of like Krispy Kreme.  We're big fans of root beer and cream soda in this family, so I thought this would be a fun place to try out.

Grammy and Grandma walking with William into the restaurant.

When we got inside the restaurant I saw that some people were waiting to be seated, and with a group of 10, I knew we would probably have a long wait.  I should have called ahead to see if they took reservations.  William usually eats around 11:30, so I knew any length of wait wouldn't be good for him.  It was already noon, so it was past his lunchtime.  He was pretty good, though.  I think part of that was because he snacked on cookies in the car, and the other part was, he had lots of people to distract him.  He did really want to wander into where all the tables were.  That kid just loves to walk around see new places.  Just walk and walk.  He doesn't really get into things, just wander.

Bethany and I took a trip to the bathroom where she remarked to me, "Mommy, it smells like root beer in here."  And it totally did.  Kind of like sasparilla.  Best smelling bathroom, I've ever been in.  I think that's because it was right next to the bottling line.  The line wasn't going, but you could see all the bottles lined up ready to go.  And there was somebody in there working.

After a couple of minutes the buzzer went off and the hostess asked us if we minded sitting upstairs.  I said no because I just wanted to sit down to eat.  It was pretty neat up there and everyone was happy we were seated.

You can kind of tell how neat the old building was from this pic.

Shane and I both started with the bottomless mug of cream soda.  It was good, but I think A&W is better.  Here's what Shane thought.

William enjoyed his chicken nuggets after he wandered a bit upstairs.  It really worked out nicely to be up there.  There weren't many people and William could wander to his heart's content.

Bethany gives her root beer a thumbs up and a wink.

My food was very good.  I had the southwestern wrap and it was so yummy.  I would definitely get it again.  I think the fries I snatched from Shane and William were really good too.  My only complaint about this place was that our waitress seemed put out at us from the beginning.  Like we were inconveniencing her by being there.  Now maybe she didn't normally have the tables upstairs or something, but I don't like getting that feeling from somebody who depends on people being at their place of employment to get paid.  Anyway, I would go back again, so it didn't annoy me too much. After my first mug of cream soda, I switched to root beer and liked that much more.  So much more in fact, I drank two mugs.  I had to get my money's worth, right?

For dessert we had to try a root beer float and what was basically an orange float.  It had a fancy name, but I don't remember what it was.

It was all really good.

Originally we had plans to go to the Botanical Garden that day.  But we had several things going against us.  First, it was only about 50 degrees and threatening to rain.  Not really ideal weather to explore a botanical garden.  And second, it was about 1:30 by now and we would have had to leave the gardens at 3:00 to get to the hotel in time.  We didn't think it was worth it to pay for such little time there.  So we just headed to hotel to wait it out.

Check in time was 3:00 and we got there around 2:00.  The kids amused themselves by walking laps around the hotel with Daddy and Grammy.  The rest of us waited in our cars.  We got a super great deal on our hotel room through a friend from church, Hannah.  She works for a Hilton hotel chain in Peoria, and was able to get us a room at a Homewood Suites, which is another Hilton hotel.  She had to come down to check us in and then she took the train back.  We were super appreciative.  Thanks Hannah!

Once we got into the room we made ourselves comfortable and William found one of his new favorite toys.  Ultimately, we just had to unplug it from the wall because he wouldn't leave it alone.

Shane took Hannah to the train station and the rest of us took a dip in the pool.  Since it was a Thursday afternoon, we had the place to ourselves.  William wasn't a big fan of the pool, but I think it was mostly because he didn't get a nap that afternoon and was SUPER cranky.  He was supposed to get a nap in the stroller at the Botanical Gardens, but you know how that worked out.  Bethany had the best time in the pool.  And she spent a lot of time floating in the baby raft we brought for William and playing with Papa the shark.  At one point she told Aunt Amanda, "This is the best day of my life."

After swimming and baths, we went down to the lobby for our complimentary dinner.  They only offer it on weeknights, but it was nice to take advantage of once.

Heading down the hallway.

Remember how much fun it was to ride the elevator as a kid?

Of course, monkey see, monkey do.

 

At dinner, they had some chicken wings and Bethany tried them first.  She said they were spicy, and I just assumed they had some flavorful BBQ sauce on them.  However, she wasn't lying.  They were SPICY.  That became quite the topic at dinner about just how spicy they were.  And I think we all tried at least one to experience it for ourselves.

After dinner we went back to the room and got the kids put to bed.  We watched some TV and after playing around with the sofa bed for Mom and Amanda, we went to bed as well.

The adventure continues tomorrow at the zoo.