On the Trail of Lewis and Clark

Going to St. Louis was a special treat for me.  I had spent months immersed in the history of Lewis and Clark and getting to go places they had been was so satisfying.

Of course we had to go to the arch.  

There is usually a westward expansion museum in the bottom of the arch, but it was being renovated so we didn't get to do that.

Lewis and Clark statue on the Mississippi River.

William Clark's grave:

My parents can verify that I was very determined to find this grave - the old (and still open) cemetery is in a less than desirable part of town.  The cemetery is immense and even knowing more or less where to look took a little trial and error.

We also visited the Lewis and Clark Boathouse, which is in nearby St. Charles. The joke there was that the stuffed Seaman that they were selling in the gift shop cost $19.95 - the real Seaman cost $20.

This is my selfie with the Missouri river.

On our way out of St. Louis we took a "river route", which I could not make my map app take and had to break out a paper map (side note - does anyone else try to zoom in on paper maps with their fingers?).  It was pretty interesting, but got cut short because a bridge had washed out.  But that was enough.  I got to see the actual Missouri, which was almost as cool as if I had met Lewis or Clark.

Storm brewing on the Missouri.

Natalie's Birthday

June has come and gone and with it - Natalie's birthday.  She turned 8 this year.  Does that make anyone else feel like they are older than they thought they were? 

She really liked this cake even though it is not homemade.  We are renovating the kitchen and I am not baking anything these days.  Naturally those things take longer than you expect they will and the whole thing is making Natalie's planned birthday party farther and farther from her actual birthday.  It will be Paris themed though.  Natalie wants to learn French and go to Paris.

Dealing with an unfinished kitchen has been challenging and not in a fun way.  It is going to look nice, but at the moment it feels like I would rather we had just left it alone.  But I realized that suffering during a home renovation is a 1st world problem - or a 1st world self inflicted suffering, that is - it is difficult to live through, but 2nd and 3rd world people don't do kitchen renovations and generally their suffering doesn't end with a new backsplash, extra pantry storage, and properly wired outlets.

4th of July 2018

Happy 4th of July!  We had our 4th of July traditions almost 100% completed by 10am.  The kids walked in the Whispering Pines 4th of July parade with some friends.  It was an eclectic theme - a dog, a flag, a skateboard, 2 scooters and...a giant inflatable shark!

Dressed as Uncle Sam

Scooter Riders

And they got 2nd place in their division.

If only our shark had been bigger, we definitely would have gotten 1st place.

We are still working on a new fireworks tradition, we stopped going to the big fireworks shows a few years ago - just too much traffic.  From our street we can see quite a bit of fireworks (both sanctioned and unsanctioned!).  Happy 4th of July!

St. Louis Zoo

When I first started stewing over this road trip we just took, I didn't really think about visiting St. Louis.  My mom's family lives in southern Illinois and I had friends I wanted to visit in Kansas and SW Missouri.  St. Louis was just a place I was asking, do we drive through or do we bypass?

Suddenly I remembered that Lewis and Clark and the Corp of Discovery embarked from the St. Louis area and surely there would be sites there I would be interested to see.  As I began to look into it, I realized I didn't want to just drive through, I wanted to stop and see.  I also learned that many museums and the zoo in St. Louis have free admission.  These pictures are from our zoo day:

A rainy day did not dampen our enjoyment of this great zoo.  It really is an excellent collection of animals.  Plus they had many animals we cannot have in Miami. 

Irene sees her faves!

The reptile house was incredible!

I loved the butterfly house.

I did not expect to see a grizzly bear - I counted this as a Lewis and Clark related siting!

We were all impressed (and thoroughally chilled) by the penguin exhibit.

The polar bear was on our bucket list.

Turtle Park

I had a tip from an Illinois cousin that although the zoo has free admission, the parking is kind of expensive.  She advised me where I could find free parking, that ended up being next to the Turtle Park, which is a park full of GIANT concrete turtles - one of each kind native to Missouri.

More to come...eventually :)