Meet Me in St. Louie

Last weekend, my girl friends Jessica, Lisa and I made a fun trip across the state to St. Louis. Now, let me start off by saying I do not usually have good thoughts when it comes to STL but I'm always up for fun times so off we went! Our first stop was at a local pizza chain, Imo's, famous for their toasted ravioli and super thin crust pizza. It was pretty good!

Toasted ravioli

The thinnest crust pizza I've ever had!

Aren't they cute with their little logo with the arch? (one of my annoyances with STL- the arch is on everything!)

Our next stop was a tour of the Anheuser-Busch headquarters and brewery. This giant company started with Mr. Anheuser and his son-in-law, Mr. Busch and they now sell almost 50% of all beer in America. That's a lot! The tour was good but it concentrated more on the beer making process and I would have preferred a few more stories! But you did get two free samples at the end which was nice! I tried the Bud Light Wheat which was ok and a blueberry kind which was actually really good! And that's saying something because I don't like beer at all!

The whole facility was like a little town. All the buildings made of brick. 

Hands down, the best part of the tour was seeing the Clydesdales and the dalmatian! I felt like I was meeting celebrities! They keep some horses there at the STL brewery but some of them are at a farm in Boonville! I had no idea they were at my old stompin' grounds! I've never heard of anyone talking about it in Boonville or seen it. I'll have to do some investigating on that sometime.

So pretty!

The horses have their own truck!

This horse's name is Bruce! He's probably the best one!

We "spotted" the dalmatian around the corner!

A view of the brewery. When you think of a huge company like Budweiser, you think of ultra modern facilities but it was actually very historic looking.

Inside the packaging and labeling factory.

After the tour, we checked into our hotel and got ready for the next event. We stayed downtown and here was our view!

County courthouse (I think) and Arch.

Park

So, the next event was going to a book signing for the "Pioneer Woman." I had never heard of this woman, probably because I don't really cook. Anyways, apparently this woman started a blog and now has a cookbook and novel. It's all about how she was a city girl who fell in love with an Oklahoman cowboy and now is raising their family on a cattle ranch. When we got there, we were one of the last people in and after the author spoke a few minutes, we had a number and had to wait for our group to be called to have her sign a book. There were over 700 people there! We ended up waiting for 4 hours!! We managed to entertain ourselves but we just had no idea it was going to take that long. 

JJ with her cookbook!

Afterwards, it was time to eat some dinner! We went back to the hotel and walked across the street to Caleco's. Guess who ended up coming to the exact same restaurant- the Pioneer woman herself! It was crazy.

The next day was our tour at Busch stadium, where the Cardinals play. My favorite part was JJ wearing her Royals cap! Way to represent!

JJ and Lisa outside the stadium

I love tours and finding out about places so even though I cannot stand the Cardinals, I still really enjoyed the tour! We had a great guide! We also had the cutest old man in our group and it was his birthday. We all sang happy birthday to him. He was a big Cardinals fan so he was excited!

The stadium has an awesome view of the skyline!

It really is a gorgeous stadium and would be a great place to watch a game! We got to walk through the owner's suite and we sat in the dugout and we walked on the dirt track so it was pretty neat.

Our last stop was to the City Museum. This place was not at all what I expected- it was nuts! It's not a museum at all. It's a playground/maze/jungle gym. There are crazy rooms with caves and slides and all you do is explore! It's so much fun for kids. But we liked it too! Part of it was outside and we were climbing up in all this weird contraptions with nothing but the ground below us and it was kinda scary! I would love to go back!

I would recommend this to anyone visiting STL, just because it's like nothing I've ever experienced before.  http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp

So before we headed back to KC, we wanted to get some of STL's famous gooey butter cake. We looked up online where Gooey Louie's was because they were supposed to have the good stuff. We drove all through the city only to get there and it was closed! Typical St. Louis I tell you! Then, we wanted to get some frozen yogurt so we looked that up too, drove to the address and it was a Prudential real estate office! By then, we were really ready to get back to the good city in MO.

Overall, it was a fun trip!

Til next time... Laura