Janet + Luda + Marcial’s = FUN
Following an awesome night at the NFL Draft, we did not leave ourselves any time to rest and recoup. We quickly packed up our belongings, thanked the Early’s for the hospitality and hit the road for a cross-state drive from Kansas City to St. Louis. We watched the NFL Draft at Union Station in Kansas City. We then headed to Union Station in St. Louis, which has been renovated into a hotel. We were excited to be meeting up with my oldest sister, Tori, and her daughter, Cadence. In the words of Rad Jack, “DTRMF!”. They were on their own midwestern adventure, heading to STL after spending some time exploring in Chicago
MIle: 9,674
Quote of the Blog: “Traveling with the company of those you love is home in motion.” - Leigh Hunt
Song of The Blog: “Nasty” - Janet Jackson
We picked them up from the train station, checked into our hotel, then went to explore the Union Station for a bit. This was perfect for Cadence, as there were all sorts of games and activities for little kids and big kids alike. We have been down here before, and now know a little about to do and what to avoid. One thing I wanted to do was play their mini golf course. It was super fun, and a great way to get the action-packed weekend started!
It was time for us to head out for a nice dinner in the Hill, which is the “Italian” area of St. Louis. We did not know that getting our car from the hotel valet would turn into such a junk show. It was the perfect timing for their system to fall apart. The hotel was hosting a wedding, a high school prom and a wake. Next to the hotel was the St. Louis soccer team’s field, and their game was getting ready to start. This added up to an absolute mess. After waiting for too long, we canceled having them pick up our car so we could get an Uber. After waiting and many Uber-fails secondary to traffic, we decided to see if we could try to get our car again. Only to find out that our car had been retrieved the first time we asked for it, and it was left open in the middle of an active lane in the street in front of the hotel. What a mess!
We hopped in the car and headed up to The Hill for dinner at Gia-Tony’s. This is an amazing Italian spot (The Hill in STL is the Italian area and is famous for their fried ravioli’s). Such a bomb dinner! It was nice to have Tori back around. It has been a while since I have seen my family. From the sounds of it, their time up in Chicago was really fun! With all of us having a travel day, we thought it would be a good idea to head back to the hotel and relax for the night.
In true Marcial-fashion, we had a lot of activities to squeeze into the weekend. Cadence and Tori have never been to STL before, so we started with something Cadence had on her must do list; the Gateway Arch National Park. This was something I have actually never done before. It was always something that we passed by, as we were usually crunched for time in our St. Louis adventures. It was really cool to go down into the area under the arch; which has been made into a really cool museum about the history of the St. Louis area, the planning and building of the arch itself and some other cool natural history elements. For me it is very interesting to be in “The Gateway to the West”. I have grown up and spent all time life in the west, so it is cool to see how it is depicted from this perspective, and how people like Lewis and Clark helped shape both the west and St. Louis.
The Arch was completed in 1965 to commemorate the bond between St. Louis and the Western United States. St. Louis is commonly known as the Gateway to the West and has played this role throughout westward expansion. Making our way down into the arch, we had to go down into the foundation of the arch to get into the tram that would take us to the top of the structure. During this time, we walked through some informational areas about the arch and it’s construction. It is a pretty complex tram that does a lot of shifting around as you move up. They have not made many changes to the original design. This is most noticeable when you get into “the egg”. These “eggs” are the tram terminals you sit in on your way up to the top. It very much reminded me of something straight out of a mid 80’s Superman movie. Getting into it and going up, I had to remind myself to “trust the process.” A quick trip up to the top puts you in a small curved room with slotted glass windows looking down. On one side you can look out over downtown St. Louis. The other side overlooks the Mississippi River and Illinois. It was a really cool experience, and I am glad we got to do it with Cadence as she seemed to really enjoy this.
We moved on to find ourselves some lunch. Knowing that Tori likes baseball as much as I do, we thought it would be fun to take her down to Ballpark Village to show her the stadium. It was fun to give Toris some crap on her birthday, because she is a big Cubs fan sitting in the middle of a Cardinals bar. She made it easy for us! We enjoyed a few big birthday beers and lunch and then it was time to chase Cadence around City Museum.
Cadence is the perfect age for an afternoon at City Museum. We have explored this spot many times, and I still love going there. It is the coolest playground I have ever been to. 11 stories tall, and things to do all the way up. I was very impressed with Cadence’s willingness to take on some of the bigger challenges; including the massive 10-story spiral slide. Once again, my brain gets my body into places it shouldn’t be here. There are so many caves and passage ways in which we end up army crawling to get through. Today the roof was open, so we had to make a stop up there to hop out into the school bus that hangs off the edge of the roof. Cadence made for a fantastic bus driver!!
With bruised knees and a could new cuts and scrapes, we wrapped up another awesome City Museum adventure and headed back to the hotel to change for the day’s main event, then head to dinner at Broadway Oyster Bar. When Tori was planning her trip out to the Midwest, she had come across a concert she was interested in going to on her birthday. This concert was Janet Jackson with special guest Ludacris. Obviously, I was all about it from the moment she mentioned it. More of the Luda for me, but Janet is cool too.
Our hotel was within walking distance of the show at the Enterprise Center. We got there and to our seats just in time for Ludacris to take the stage. This was a show that Amity and I have been anticipating for a while. It was everything we thought it would be. Nothing like the entertainment of a middle-aged man rapping about things he came up with in his teens and early twenties. With every song came memories of high school and college parties. It was fun and comical at the same time. Then the main show started. Janet Jackson got up there and crushed it. You would have no idea how old she actually is based on her voice. Her dance moves were a little light, bsut she still killed it. We were very entertained and enjoyed the show end to end.
At this point we were all so tired and needed to get to bed. The next morning, we made a stop at “Uncle Bill’s Pancakes.” This is a spot Amity first showed me on my first trip to St. Louis. Having Cadence here this time made it all the better. With some more time before we had to head home, we decided to take Cadence over to the Anhiswer Busch Headquarters to show her the Clydesdale horses that live there. We have now been to three of the four places the Anheiswer Busch Clydesdales live. They are such a huge animal it is aways inspiring to see them.
As any trip comes, we must head home. We helped Cadence and Tori get to their hotel next to the airport. It was so nice to have them in the mid-west for an adventure! We can’t wait to see them again this Summer in Oregon for the family reunion! As for us, it was another quick drive back to Rolla with our standard stop at Wally’s for gas and snacks. Many more adventures are only days away!