Day 8 - Meet Me In St. Louis

Today was a day spent in St. Louis, the Gateway to the West. The downtown area near the Arch is a nice place, with office buildings, parks, the Edward Jones Dome (Rams) and Busch Stadium (Cardinals) all within walking distance of our hotel. We started the day with a tour of Busch Stadium. We have done 6 ballpark tours now (Yankee, Red Sox, Phillies, Giants, Padres and Cardinals). I think this tour was an average one, not bad, but not great.


The tour guide seemed very excited about pictures on the wall and all of the great places to eat. We got into the radio booth and the Cardinals dugout, but not into the locker rooms, even though the Cardinals were away.
It is a very nice looking stadium, with padded seats everywhere and a beautiful view of the Arch from most seats. But the tour just lacked a little pizazz. Can't put my finger on what was missing, but something was.

After the tour, and a completely unnecessary spending spree in the Cardinals Clubhouse Store, we headed for the Budweiser Factory Tour. There were two main draws for this tour. Number one, the tour was free. And number two, at the end of the tour they give each adult two free beers. So, do the math - Free Tour + Free Beer = Perfect Combination.


The tour itself was a little bit of a letdown, as our tour guide Nathan talked just about as fast as that guy in the old FedEx commercials and held the mike closer to his mouth than Elton John does. Not a conducive way to getting your message out. We saw some big machines that hold beer, some big machines that fill beer bottles and cans, and some other big machines that do other stuff, which I can't explain since I couldn't understand Nathan.


But, the end of the tour did not disappoint, as we were led into a room with beer taps and could choose any of the beers they sell. Once again going with the "When In Rome Theory" I chose a straight Bud for the first beer (tasted pretty much as I remembered, which is why I don't drink Bud) and an Amber Bock as the 2nd beer. Much better. My wife, the lush, also partook in the free beer festivities, and was dancing with a lampshade on her head after imbibing half of her Bud.




It was now about 2:15, and time for our daily food orgy. For today's completely over the top meal of the day, we decided to head for a place called the Crown Candy Kitchen. To get to this restaurant, we had to leave the nice, safe feeling confines of downtown and head towards North St. Louis. It was only about 10 minutes from the Bud factory to the lunch place, but about 15 income levels down. There was nothing but vacant buildings with open windows and run down houses in this area. I am pretty sure when they filmed part of "Vacation" showing Chevy Chase driving in St. Louis, it was in this part of St. Louis. As we were looking for the place, I said to Debbie "maybe we won't stop here." But as we found the place we saw people coming out with nice looking ice creams, so we decided to risk our lives for some more food.


Once again, the Roadfood book was on the money. They made excellent sandwiches, Debbie and I had the gluten-free, dairy-free Reubens (but with the gluten and dairy) and they were outstanding. And not to insult the establishment, because who are we to turn our backs on tradition, we felt obligated to partake in their specialty - desserts. The boys shared an ice cream, as did Debbie and I (banana for those scoring at home), but Amanda won the prize for best dessert - a chocolate malted milkshake. When she was done she proclaimed "This is the best day ever!"




After we rolled out of lunch around 3:30, we decided to head back towards the Arch and try and catch a 4:30 boat ride on the Mississippi. After parking the car at the hotel and walking to the Arch, and getting bad instructions from a park ranger on where to go, we sprinted to the boat and got there just in time for a 1 hour trip down on the Mighty Mississippi. Frankly, other than some power plants, bridges and barges, once you left the Arch area there wasn't much scenery to enjoy. But, we can say we sailed the Mississippi, so that's nice.


After leaving the boat, we walked back to the hotel and got into our bathing suits for the first time on the trip and went swimming in the hotel pool for about an hour, before showering and heading downstairs to another relatively boring dinner at the Irish restaurant in the hotel.

Tomorrow is another driving day, as we are headed to Iowa to see the Field of Dreams site. We debated how far we were going to drive tomorrow, but ended up deciding to drive all the way to the town where Field of Dreams is located, so we can just get up and be there on Thursday. So, tomorrow will be a road day, and I just hope I see a place where they make Throwed Starbucks.