Recommendation

Hi Friends,

Today I would like to share with you a little bit about my recent (sorry its taken me so long to post this) trip to St. Louis, MO and express why I think you should consider a trip there too!!!! First let me say that I have a tendency to go into too much detail with my stories, so, in the interest of saving time, and so that you do not have to read a novel, here are just a few highlights from the trip:

Time: June 25th – June 28th
Distance Traveled: 724 miles (roundtrip)
Average Temp: 90 degrees (yeah, it was HOT!)
Hotel Accommodations: Hampton Inn at the Gateway Arch

Now, let me pause here to explain why we chose this particular hotel:
1. Its downtown and within walking distance of the Arch and Busch Stadium
2. It got great reviews and ratings on Trip Advisor
3. It has an indoor pool
4. They serve a complimentary breakfast each morning
5. They had a parking garage at the hotel
6. We were able to get a room with a view of the Arch

The hotel lived up to pretty much all of my expectations!!! The only bummer was that our room didn't have a microwave (although it did have a fridge) and the room was slightly smaller that I imagined it would be (although it was perfectly adequate for Ryan and I). Overall we had a really nice stay there!

Moving on… here is what we were up to while we were there:

Thursday – Checked into our Hotel and then visited the Arch.
Highlight – Learning how the Arch was built and how they managed to create something to take you to the top of the Arch (INSIDE THE STRUCTURE!!!!) Fascinating!

Friday – Visited St. Louis' FREE zoo in the morning, swam at the hotel in the afternoon, and went to a Twins/Cardinals night game a Busch Stadium.
Highlight – Witnessing an elephant (only about 15 feet away) splash himself with water from his trunk and then proceed to plunge into a deep pool, making a huge splash, causing all the kids watching to laugh and giggle! It was the coolest thing I've ever witnessed at a zoo!

Saturday – Put lots of sunscreen on, packed up four bottles of water and a lot of ice and then attended the Twins/Cardinals day game on one of St. Louis' HOTTEST days of the year! Yeah, it was 98 degrees and our seats were in the sun!!!! It was a scorcher!
Highlight – Seeing Joe Mauer bat in the ninth even though he wasn't in the batting line up! Oh yeah, another highlight was going back to our hotel after the game, where it was air conditioned!!!! : )

Sunday – We basically just packed up, checked out of our hotel and headed home. Yeah, the day we left it was a nice breezy 75 degrees out! Isn't that always the way it goes!

So, now that you know what we did on our trip, here is my plug for St. Louis! Here are the top six reasons YOU should consider a trip to St. Louis:

#6 Its only a five hour drive!
#5 The Arch is a fascinating site to visit!
#4 St. Louis has a free zoo which is quite nice and pretty big too.
#3 Busch Stadium is a really nice place to attend a baseball game! The staff there is great (even if you are cheering on the away team) and on hot days they offer free ice and water to keep you hydrated and the fire department comes and sprays water from their trucks into the street to help you stay cool!
#2 The Amheiser Busch Brewery tour is also free. We did not get a chance to do this while we were there, but I'm sure it’s a worthwhile site, and its free, so you can't really go wrong!
#1 The people seem nice. The staff at our hotel and the staff at the ball park were all incredibly friendly and helpful! I would go anywhere for good customer service! : )

So, there you have it! Now, if I could only get around to putting pictures on here! Visit Ryan's Facebook page if you'd like to see pictures before I finally get around to posting them on here!