Road Trip Day 5

Day 5: June 12

J & I decided to sleep in this morning. We have been on the go since Friday morning, waking up by 8 each morning. That is not how I envisioned a vacation. So this morning, we slept in until 9. Haha. We spent most of the morning in bed watching tv.

We left the hotel and started to walk around an explore downtown St. Louis. One of the first buildings we saw was this one.

It’s a fire station! We though it was the coolest “old” building. Then, we saw the fire truck backing into the building.

We found a local restaurant to eat lunch at. Of course, we saw fried pickles on the menu & had to try them. Don’t worry, Mom. We still like our recipe better.

After that, we walked over to the “Gateway to the West.” I’m not gonna lie. When I saw how high we were going to be going, from the base of the Arch, I started to have a panic attack.

We had pre-purchased our tickets so we went through the metal detector & got in line for the tram. We saw a few mini exhibits before getting on the tram. This is a picture of the waiting area for the trams.

The tram is SMALL! They fit 5 people in these. I snuck this picture as we were leaving the trams (that's why it's blurry).

We couldn’t take pictures getting in but this is an extra one they have in the lobby. Poor J was pretty squished and had very little headroom.

Here are some pictures from the top of the arch towards downtown St. Louis.

Busch Stadium (MLB Cardinals) is on the right.

Edward Jones Dome (NFL Rams) on the left.

Here are some pictures towards Illinois. Yes, the other side of the river is Illinois.

Then, we took the "traditional" pictures of ourselves with the Arch.

We wandered around a lot this afternoon trying to find a wifi connection for me to upload the post for Day 4. Then, we walked back to the hotel to get ready for the Cardinals game. We bought these shirts at Union Station last night, 50% off clearance price. So…they were $5 each!! I hope the Berkmans are happy. Now, I own Cardinals red. Yuck! =) But $10 makes it worth it for one night.

I had a little panic attack when we got to Busch Stadium. The will call people could not find our tickets. But after a few phone calls, they were located and we got to go into one of the coolest stadiums I’ve ever been in. (Granted I’ve only been to Minute Maid Park & the Astrodome so far. Haha.)

I love that you can see the Arch out center field.

Our seats ended up being pretty great. 3rd base side, bottom level.

The game was so much fun, minus the top of the 8^thwhen the White Sox scored 4 runs. I think I might become a Cardinals fan once the Astros move to the American League…maybe. =)

After the baseball game, we booked it back to our hotel room. The Thunder had just started the 4^th quarter of the NBA Finals Game 1. What a sweet time to be a Thunder fan. Anywho, we were able to watch our Thunder “BEAT THE HEAT” in Game 1 105-94!! Thunder Up Baby!!!

Tomorrow, lunch with one of J’s high school friends & driving to Kansas City. Goodnight!

Road Trip Day 4

Day 4: June 11 (I’ve decided to type this while we’re driving so I won’t forget anything. Sorry if it’s TMI. Just let me know!)

We left Oklahoma this morning with the threat of major thunderstorms heading towards I-44 from Tulsa to St. Louis (basically our whole trip today). Good thing J is driving.

As we were driving through Oklahoma, we weren’t really planning on stopping until Missouri. However, we saw this sign & I made J pull over…rather quickly.

He unintentionally started collecting mugs/paraphernalia and I have a terrible habit of collecting anything that is part of any set/collection/series.  =) My parents bought J a Hard Rock fbeer glass when they were in Europe and he decided that he wanted to switch from coffee mugs (which he uses as pen holders since he hates coffee) to the glasses.

So, when I saw the sign for the Hard Rock Casino & Hotel, I knew we had to stop at all the Hard Rocks we could on this trip. This was my first casino experience too. Stinkin’ hubs wouldn’t let me play even $1 on the slots. Guess he thinks I would get a bad habit. =) But look! Isn’t this mug worth the stop?

I know it’s a mug, but it’s a beer mug so I think J will use it more than he does his actual mugs. He thinks it would be perfect for ice cream floats. I guess we have needed a mug for that purpose for a while. It’s supposed to cost $11 but everything was 25% off so we got it for just under $9, tax & all!

About those storms, we saw this set of clouds just after we went through Vinita, OK.

Don’t they look dark? Yeah, that’s what we thought but did we hit any rain? Not until after the clouds were behind us. Crazy.

Also in Vinita, I got to see the McDonald’s bridge for the first time. Yes non-Oklahoman friends, a McDonald’s with a bridge over the highway.

When we got close to the Oklahoma/Missouri border, we went by the town of Miami (pronounced my-am-ah). 

This is where my freshman college roommate was from. Thanks to her, I know how to say the name of the town correctly without being laughed at in Oklahoma. She was a great potluck roommate. Ok, off the bunny trail.

Once we crossed the border into Missouri, I noticed the coolest thing ever.

Isn’t that so crazy?! They put the tenths of a mile on the bottom of EVERY mile marker, every .2 miles! How can they afford all those mile markers?

Ok off that bunny trail too.

We stopped at the Missouri Welcome Center for the obvious break. But it was such a cool, clean welcome center.

Besides taking pictures, we got umpteen amounts of brochures for St. Louis and Kansas City. So excited to find cool things to do besides just the ballparks & Triple D eateries (Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives for you Food Network virgins).

Random bunny trail ahead:

Today at 3pm I had a brilliant idea: License Plate Game! Why didn’t I think of this earlier?! So, I started snapping pictures of the plates we saw from different states. Of course, we were already in Missouri by this point. But besides Missouri we found Illinois, Indiana, New York, Alabama, and more. On 18-wheelers, we found Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa & Nebraska. Such a fun goal to have & it helps keep the driver awake & me interacting with him.

Our first view of the arch!!

We checked into our hotel and walked to St. Louis Union Station. It’s an old train station that has been turned into a mall. We ended up eating at Landry’s since it was 8 o’clock at night.

Still pretty though, right?

Tomorrow…the arch & the baseball game. Goodnight.

Road Trip, Day 2 & 3

The last two days have been less busy but lots of driving around Oklahoma.

Day 2: June 9. Jerome & I drove to Oklahoma City to see family.

J's cousin had a miracle of these precious twins last week.
I'm holding Olivia Kathleen & J is holding Elijah Conrad.

After seeing family, we drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma. We went to our alma mater, Oklahoma State University, for a wedding of a dear friend of mine. They got married on campus with the Library as the background.

A clever way of making sure he never saw the bride.

The happy couple after being pronounced.

Day 3: June 10.

We went to visit J's grandparents in a small lakeside town. We drove down in time to make the worship service.

Isn't it cute?

My father-in-law even got up and performed a song.

Tonight, after we got back from visiting J's grandparents, our sweet niece K came over to visit. We haven't seen her since this past Christmas. She was 1 year and 3 weeks old then. Now she is 18 months.  I will never have a blonde-haired blue-eyed baby so that makes me love her even more. Isn't she precious?!

She was more comfortable with Nana & Poppi but she kept staring at J.

K was blowing us kisses with her momma.

Tomorrow morning, we're off to St. Louis.

Road Trip, Day 1

We started Road Trip 2012 an evening early. My parents had tickets to the Houston Astros game so we decided to call it the unofficial start to our road trip. Unfortunately, we lost 14-2. Not pretty.

The Dancing Chicken - cream cheese, grilled chicken, bacon,
granny smith apple, tomato, lettuce & YUMMY!!

Man operated scoreboard

The view from our seats 

Minute Maid train...with oranges in the car

Now, on to Day 1 of our road trip. Look at what we had to leave behind!

Our baby puts on the best puppy dog pity eyes that I've ever seen a dog give.
I love him so much but he couldn't come this time.

Thankfully, the hubs was okay with me wanting to take lots of pictures on this trip and stopping at all of the "touristy" places that my family never stops at. So stop #1 - Sam Houston Statue in Huntsville, Texas. We always drive by Sam to and from Oklahoma and wave/salute him but we never stop. I'm so glad that we stopped.

They have a replica of Sam's face so you can get an idea for the size of the statue.

Someone had to. =)

Now, we're in Oklahoma visiting family that we haven't seen in 6 months. Yay for newborn twins & a wedding tomorrow!