Trip to St. Louis, MO - Part 2

 This post is actually more about our visit to Washington, Missouri, but I'll keep with the St. Louis theme in the title. 

Washington, Missouri is about 45 minutes to an hour west of St. Louis and sits right on the Missouri River.  Did you know the first Walmart Supercenter was built here back in 1988?

When I arrived at the hotel after my visit to the Gateway Arch, no one was there yet and I couldn't check in because the reservation was under my mom's name.  So I went to Target to get snacks and waters.  Meanwhile, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Annie arrived and set up the bar!  Here, Uncle Kevin pretends to be a wine opener.  We hadn't even opened the bottles yet and we were already acting this way!!!

Well, now the bottles might have been opened!?!  My mom, Sara and Rhonda finally arrived, and my mother was walking around the room with this shawl on saying, "Alms for the poor!"  And we were totally dying!!!

Family and laughter really IS the best medicine!

There was lots of storytelling ...

... and there was music, and singing of course.

And then we were hungry, so St. Anastasia (aka: my cousin Stasi) drove all seven of us in her mini van to Marquat's Landing for dinner.  That definitely qualifies one for sainthood!

From the parking lot at Marquat's Landing, we could see St Francis Borgia Church at dusk. The original log church was built here in 1838 (although this church is much newer!)

So we go into Marquat's Landing for some dinner, and we asked if the wait was very long (it wasn't) and as we were walking back to our table, Uncle Kevin announced, "Well, these guys have been waiting a really long time!" SO FUNNY!

Four of Memo and Pepo's daughters, one son-in-law and two granddaughters.

I just love that Aunt Rhonda brought a koozie from one of our family reunions!

Uncle Kevin, you cannot commit a B&E here, ok???

After a good dinner, we made it back to the hotel and got a good night sleep.  In the morning, Stasi and Kevin went out for some awesome donuts from the Donut Palace.  Of course, then the three of us felt immediately like we needed to go "walk the donuts off" so we went down to the riverfront trail to get some steps in.

I never thought I'd be taller than Uncle Kevin!  In the distance you can see the Washington Bridge which crosses the Missouri River here. This bridge is the new bridge which was built around 2016 - the old bridge (built in 1934) had some structural concerns, so they demolished that one in 2019.

This is the Missouri River! I don't know why I was geeking out so much over this. I mean... it IS the longest river in the United States of course, and you know how much I love a good superlative!

Our walk was all too brief, but we had to head back to the hotel to get ready for our visit with Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dan.  Meanwhile, Nate and his bride to be Autumn left little gift bags at the hotel for those who traveled in from out of town! (No, I did not take one!)

Stasi drove us all out to Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dan's place in Clayton, which is literally minutes from my cousin Ann's house. This retirement home has it ALL, including great views of downtown St. Louis!

Uncle Dan's family joined us for a great lunch up in the lounge - my cousin Maggie's face here is priceless!

And of course, we had a bunch of the Ewbank family here too, including my mom and her sisters Barbara (and her husband Dan), Anita (and her husband Kevin), Rhonda and Sara, as well as my cousins Stasi, Ann (and her husband Mark), and Maggie (and her husband Bill!).  The sad thing is, I don't even think this is even half of my mom's family!

We enjoyed some lunch and conversation with the aunties and uncles.

After lunch, we went outside on the beautiful terrace for some fresh air and great views of St. Louis (and Uncle Dan!)

It's happy hour with the Ewbanks and Rooneys!

There's always lots of story telling and laughter.

I can't tell if Aunt Annie is telling a story or praising Jesus!

Finally, we were all summoned to go visit Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dan's place downstairs.

And of course, Uncle Kevin, Stasi and I gravitated toward their push-pin map of the world!  We said our goodbyes to Uncle Dan and Aunt Barbara since we had ONE more stop to make before we all went back to Washington.

And somehow, when we got back in Stasi's car, we wound up with a big cup of white wine, which Aunt Annie made us drink!

Next stop, Ann and Mark's house in Webster Groves!

We sat around outside and talked and laughed and snacked.  My cousin Danny and his wife Denise also joined us!

Girl cousins!  Ann, me, Maggie and Stasi is right behind us. We're missing Jann, Terri and Shannon!

Then we needed to send this cousin selfie of me, Danny and Maggie to my brother, who wasn't there.

The chaos continued on the ride back to Washington!

Funny story - we got back to the hotel and had the front desk call my cousin's kids' room because we heard they were in town.  But we didn't get any answer.  So all of the auntie's pretty much decided it was time for bed.  But as I was dropping some snacks off in Aunt Rhonda's room, I heard the elevator go, "Ding!"  So I decided to wait to see who it was - and it was them!  My cousin Rosie and her fiancé Jeff are on the left, and her sister Grace and her boyfriend Erik are on the right.

Uncle Kevin is talking to Aunt Annie, my mom and our cousin Hank (who is Rosie and Grace's brother). I think we totally overwhelmed these poor kids.  At one point, we were talking about something (I have no idea what) and my mom blurts out, "Well, it's whoever was most popular that weekend!"  Stasi and I were laughing so hard, we were in tears!

The laughter continued the next morning when Aunt Annie and I were having breakfast and she looked over and deadpans, "Oh. There's a shoe."  Well. There certainly is!

Good morning Aunt Rhonda and Stasi!  I was pretty sad because I was preparing to leave for the airport, but it made me feel better when I realized I would see everyone again in less than a month for my Uncle John's funeral.

We couldn't let the family weekend slip away without a MONKEY FACE!  Stasi used to make this face when she was little and we always thought it was so super funny. It still is!

I drove back to the airport to catch my flight back to Boston, and I spotted this... which looks weird and good... or perhaps weirdly good!?

Ok, I'm seriously gonna nerd out here... this is the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers!  Look at that floodplain! How awesome is that??

Until next time, St. Louis!

Trip to St. Louis, MO - Part 1

 It makes me laugh that I have been to Skopje, Macedonia but I've never been to St. Louis!  

My cousin Ann's son Nate got married and although I didn't go to the wedding, I did join the aunties, uncles and cousins for a fun weekend in St. Louis and in Washington, Missouri.

I had an early morning flight into St. Louis and arrived several hours before my mom and two aunts from Florida. So I decided to go downtown and check out the Arch!  Well, after I had to wait an hour to get my rental car. There were about 50 people in line, and it just took forever.

I made the quick drive down into the city and parked my car near Gateway Arch National Park, which is the smallest national park in the country at 192 acres.

Arch entry, this way.

Hey, see that, kids? That's the St. Louis Arch. The Gateway to the West. It's over 600-feet tall, and there's an elevator all the way to the top. That's 60 stories to you and me. Whoa, Dad, can we go up on it?  No.  (Just kidding, you know I love a good Clark Griswold speech, of COURSE I am going up in the St. Louis Arch! I didn't come all this way to miss this experience!)

And of course, the sun allowed me to take super cool pictures of the Arch today.

But the Arch isn't the only thing to see in St. Louis!  Across the street from the Arch is the Old Courthouse, famous for being the site where the original Dred Scott case was heard.  I'll do my best to summarize here:  In 1846, a slave named Dred Scott sued for his freedom (and that of his wife, Harriett) based on the idea that since he had lived in states that prohibited slavery, he should be free.  Even though he was living in Missouri (a slave state) at the time of the court case, it was thought that the bonds of slavery were broken when his owner moved them to Illinois (a free state) and Wisconsin (a free territory) where they lived for over a decade.  Obviously, this case took a super long time.  In 1850, the St. Louis circuit court declared Scott to be free, but it was overruled by the Missouri State Court in 1852 and then that was upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court in 1854 so Scott appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1857, the Supreme Court agreed the Scott's were not free because they were not even considered citizens at the federal level, and this fanned the flames that led to the Civil War.

Did you know this was also the site of the farthest western reach of the American Revolution? I mean, literally, right here on this street!  The Battle of Fort San Carlos was the westernmost battle and it occurred here on May 26, 1780.  They stopped the British from taking control of the Mississippi River here, which was a big deal.

I mean, I guess you could consider it a manhole cover of St. Louis???

Sadly, the Old Courthouse is closed for renovations. Next time! The Old Courthouse was Missouri's tallest habitable building from 1864-1894!

In front of the courthouse is a famous statue of Dred and Harriett Scott. As I mentioned before, the Supreme Court's decision that the Scott's were not citizens of the United States was one of the major rulings that led to the Civil War.  Ultimately, the Scott family was sold to a Missouri congressmen who freed them - but Dred Scott sadly only lived another 16 months, dying of tuberculosis in September of 1858.

I had a timed ticket for the weird ride to the top of the Arch, and I was ready to go!

Inside, there is a great little museum and film that you can check out to learn more about the history of St. Louis and the construction of the Arch. I liked this animal on the wall, because we had something similar on our family room wall growing up!

The guy who won the contest to design the Gateway Arch (Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen) was also the same guy who invented the tulip chair.

You pick up your boarding pass for the tram up to the top of the Arch and then they make you go listen to a short speech about the history of the Arch and how the tram works - you're gonna tilt! There's no other way to get up there!

I was in tram 4 with a couple from Washington state who was in St. Louis for a conference. They were playing tourist without their kids (hey, so am I!)  In the picture above, you can see an average sized man relative to the door to the tram, which is the inner rectangle behind him.  That's a SMALL door.

And the little tram pod is round inside!

There are five tulip pedestal chairs, but we only had three people in our tram.  As you can see, that was pretty cramped. I can't imagine having two other people in there!

Once you get to the top, you're really at the top! You can literally see the Arch in the Arch!

And you can literally see straight down into the city. You could even watch the St. Louis Cardinals play a game from up here!

Dad, what river is this?  Ah, that's the Mississippi! The Mighty Missis-sipp! The Ole' Miss. The Old Man. Deeeeeeep RIVER!  Ahhh, you can't fail with the Clark Griswold lines in St. Louis!

The windows at the top of the Arch are angled so if you tilt your phone, you can see straight down. And that's when you realize there is nothing really underneath you!

The shadow of the world's tallest arch!  The height to the top and the width at the base are exactly the same - 630 feet.  This view is super terrifying.

Views of the Old Courthouse and the city of St. Louis are lovely though (except that fire in the distance on the right!)

The cupola of the Old Courthouse is very pretty, and I wish that it had been open for me to see.  For now, I'll just have to view it from here.

This is about half of Gateway Arch National Park, and that's the Dome at America's Center just past the tall buildings, where the St. Louis Rams played until 2015 when they moved to Los Angeles.

We finally made our way back down in that weird tilty tram, and I was able to walk around and take some really cool pictures of the Arch from below.  (I don't know these humans, they are being used for scale.)

I didn't do anything funny here, just the 0.5x setting on the iPhone. 

From this angle, the Arch almost looks like it's twisted!

One last, full, parting shot of the St. Louis Arch on the most gorgeous day. 

I went over to the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France (I see what you did there) or the "Old Cathedral" to see the FIRST cathedral west of the Mississippi! I mean... it's literally feet west of the Mississippi, but it still counts!

Although not as glamorous as the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis (wait, what? Why would you do name both churches the same thing???) which is on the other side of the city, the ceiling here is in the trompe l'oeil style.  There has been a church here since 1764, but this church was built in 1834.  Did you know that explorer William Clark’s five children and Sacagawea’s son were all baptized here?  That was in the previous church structure, but it happened here!

I needed to make the hour long drive out to Washington, Missouri because my family was arriving, so I walked back along the pretty path to my car.  This was such a cool experience!

Until next time, St. Louis!