Last stop St. Louis

 Our last stop on this years trip was St. Louis. When Becky mentioned she wanted to stop at St. Louis this year I was less than impressed.  I didn't have good thoughts about St. Louis and what is there but a large Arch. But I was wrong, it was a fun stop the Arch was really impressive. When I wanted to keep checking out things in the Arch Museum Becky liked to remind me how I didn't even want to stop here.  

In Congaree on our canoe trip the other couple on our tour had family in St. Louis. She mentioned some crazy museum they have there we should check out as the boys would love it.  It's a free for all you can crawl around everything and it's very artistic and weird.  I had never heard of it.  It's the City Museum and Lucas remembered doing something on it in school. So we got tickets and it was really awesome, such a good surprise. 

 So just one day in the city and it was enough for us but we got everything done we wanted to and were ready to head home.  The ride home was long but fine and we made it in record time, less than one hour of stops on the way (I was timing them).

Here are some of my pictures from St. Louis.

The Arch

The Arch from our campground which is across the river in East St. Louis. We couldn't see it from our side of the campground because they had some trees but could from the road in and probably could from the other end that was meant for larger RVs and didn't have any trees. The campground was at the Casino Queen, it had a good setup and looked like it was pretty hopping in it's day but a little run down and old looking right now.  But it was easy to get to and clean. We felt safe and it had full hookups. We had a little snafu pulling in as I somehow happened to make reservations for 2024 instead of 2022 so they didn't have our reservation but most of the spots were open so they got us squared away. Why it took a reservation two years in advance is beyond me but somehow I messed that one up.  Luckily it wasn't a busy place.

 

The first night there after we pulled in I got tickets to the Cardinals game. Couldn't pass up a chance to go to Busch Stadium. 

Only Marcus wanted to go so I was the two of us for the game.  The rest of the crew stayed back and watched movies in the camper.

These are our sets. The casino had a shuttle to the stadium which was really convenient. we got on the first one and it's only like a 10 minute drive so we were there a good hour and a half early.

Cardinals where playing the Marlins.  Marlins pulled a head in the 9th and won the game.

   

Our campsite, as you can see they are really busy.

 

 

The next morning we got up and headed to the Arch we had tickets to the top at 9 so had to make it on time.

We made it with just a few minutes to spare. This is Marc standing in front of the door to the "ride" to the top.

Doors closing we're all in now.

It's like being crammed into a egg, it seated five which worked well for us.

 

I think Marcus' face says it all. The ride was one of kind that used elevator, escalator, and Ferris wheel technology. I think this is when the ferris wheel technology kicked in that keeps you upright.

Lucas who hates heights and has been doing all kinds of immersion therapy this trip.

Views from the top were amazing. Busch Stadium, I was there last night.

View straight out.

Family at the top

Marcus taking pictures out the tiny windows.

   

This is looking out the other side over the river, this is the casino and the RV park behind it.  Can't see our camper it's in the trees on the left.

The base of the Arch

Looking up

Me and Luke

Rest of the gang

 

 

We also checked out the City Museum, walking up to it you can tell it's not an ordinary place.

It's even crazier inside

Had to get a shot of the big boy

The bus hanging over the edge.

Becky crawling on something.  It's a bit hard on the knees.

View from the roof

Marcus crawling up, there's a slide on the bottom and a way to crawl up over it.

Samus in the bus, he kept making all the stops

View from the bus, Lucas didn't really like being in the bus much either.

Becky being gross.

They have a 7 story slide up on the 10th floor this is from the top looking down. The slide itself was a tight spiral slide and not real comfortable to use.

Bottom looking back up.

Doctor fish, they eat the dead skin or something off your hands. There was a feeding frenzy when Sam put his hands in.

Under a waterfall

Oh the parkcor/skate park area. The kids loved this there were all these different ramps and you could run and climb on them.

Look at Marcus' back he's all sweat. He had a blast, he loved the whole thing but this area was his favorite.

Marcus climbing again way up there.

The rest of us took the stairs.

Sun is setting the last night of the trip. I'm walking over to try my luck at the Casino the last evening.  No one wanted to do anything or go anywhere so I struck out on my own. I think we were all done at this point.  Becky even suggested backing up and just going home but that was a little too crazy for me since I'm driving.

And now everyone's favorite, The family truckster update!

Miles Driven: 4700
Gallons of Gas: 462
Time in car: 120 hours

Wow this year was 2000 miles less than last year, no wonder why last year was so rough.  Also the heat was brutal last year, this year besides the Smokies and a couple heat exhaustion episodes we didn't really have any major issues with heat.  The Munsch's hate the heat. 

After we got home we had the video of our rafting trip from New River Gorge in the mail waiting for us. Seemed like forever ago now.  I took some screen shots of it and we finally have some pictures of us rafting. We've purchased the pictures at least two other times we've gone but somehow have always misplaced them.  Guess the mail thing worked well so we couldn't loose them.Unfortunately they didn't have video of us getting tossed as I'd like to see how that really went down.

The Land Between the Lakes

 The Land between the Lakes, the memory lane tour started in the Smokey Mountains and continued here in full force. We stayed here on our third trip in 2017 and had fond memories of the campsite and our time here. We got the exact same Energy Lake campsite and wondered if it was really as good as we remembered it. It was different this time, the kids are all older and didn't want to spend their time swimming at the little swim beach like last time but it was good camping and everyone was still in good spirits having a relatively good time which is excellent at this stage on the back stretch of the trip.  This is about where things can easily start to unravel. 

So Becky and I were in full memory lane mode and it just filled our hearts to recall the good times we had here and relive some of those memories with the family. The kids remembered some things but not as clear as we do. They think they know so much more about themselves but they don't realize we still remember more of there lives than they do at this point, although I'm sure it's shifting rapidly. Anyway we spent some time reviewing our old blog posts and comparing things to today. This blog is really more of a personal travel journal and while we know we probably have maybe 20 fans that really enjoy it as well (thanks for reading!), I'm really our number one fan. I look back and read through the blog often either triggered by seeing something referencing a place we've been or just having a bad day and need help resetting. While it's a bit of a chore to do on vacation I'm so glad we have it. Becky and I know we're getting close to the end, we've been to most of the continental United States (looking at you Oregon), Sam will graduate next year and will need to figure out what's next in his life. Lucas isn't far behind. I hope we continue to do some epic travels but they are going to change and as this stop reminds us they already have in a lot of ways. Part of the journey I guess. Long way of saying we reminisced a LOT it was emotional but also a lot of fun. 

It's sort of crazy how much we love this place, it's really not anything that special, we didn't even get out and do much besides camping. But we've been here twice and enjoyed it thoroughly both times. Just something about this place that fits.

Do me a favor and reminisce with us a bit and read this post from our the first stop. The Marcus-isms are great.

View of the lake from our campsite

 

 

Becky down at the beach checking out the water, it's a nice root beer brown

Our campsite, #9 in the A loop.  This is the same site we had our first visit and just loved. It's a great site big and private with easy access to the swim beach. We  just loved this site our first time here and again this time just confirmed how good it was.  Kids are older so not as interested in swimming as the first time but still a great site.

Marcus made a literal log cabin with a whole bundle of wood.

We're in Kentucky, so figured I better break out my bourbon.  From Kentucky to South Dakota and now back to Kentucky.  It's a real homecoming.

Marcus and I went for a swim the first evening to check out the water. It was warm and brown.

Sunset over the swim beach

 

 

Another throw back, our first time here I had bet Lucas he couldn't complete it. But he did and I lost the bet for a Pepsi. He couldn't repeat the feat this time but his brother Marcus kept at it and made it happen, and of course he expected the same deal.

Marcus and I enjoying his fire

This is the view that sticks in my memory the most about this place.

Ah a morning fire... just hanging out having some coffee and reading our books

Yet another trip down memory lane.  Playing Carcassonne with the family. Becky at first wanted to play on the skim board like last time but found out it was at the bottom of swim stuff in the dinette seats. She didn't want it that bad so we just played on the picnic table. We've had this cheap table cloth along for all our trips this is the second time we've got it out. Also note Marcus' enjoying his payment for his feat on the playground.

 

 

Heading to the visitor center we decided to take the shorter route instead of the suggested route... see more of the land that's between the lakes. This put us through on some rough forestry department road that was full of large rocks and washed out areas. But it was an adventure and I had just said "as long as we don't run into any fallen trees I think we'll be fine", we rounded a bend and came across this. If we only had a chain saw we'd have been fine and it would have been even more fun.  But alas we had to make a sixteen point turn and head back the way we came.

Made it to the visitor center

We got tickets to the next planetarium showing. A program about light. Then they show you the night sky for that evening and what to look for. Here's everyone on there phones waiting for it to start.

Just when you think everyone's getting too old for there own good.

Some mandatory Family swim time.  Lucas is not impressed with the water color. I think it's just tannin's from the trees. Makes it look like root beer, like Tahquamenon Falls

 

 

Behind the scenes look at how the magic happens.