St. Louis

Jer and I's 10th anniversary was last month. We've been wanting to do something fun but weren't sure what. Thankfully my parents were able to come to town to watch the kids so we could get away.
On Monday we drove down to Nauvoo to go to the temple. I ran into a couple from my ward growing up. They are on their mission in the Nauvoo temple. So I got to catch up with them and hear about their kids. They have a daughter that was my good friend, the wife was my mia maid leader and the husband was my seminary teacher. So seeing them just took me back to circa 1996. And they still look the same too. Ahh carefree (ish) days. Anyway, back to our trip. After Nauvoo we drove down to St. Charles (just north of St. Louis). They had a cute historic downtown that we wandered around and then had dinner.
There was this ginormous statue of Lewis and Clark. And they had a great trail right by the river that we walked around.

We ate at this restaurant called Llewellyns that was near the river. We had the best fried pickles ever. I've seen fried pickles on the Food Network, but have never tried them. These ones were so good. They were the pickle spears and they were beer battered and they came with a spicy dipping sauce. Just thinking about it makes me want to go eat there again.

The next day we went to downtown St. Louis to see the sights. We took a trolley tour of the city which was so interesting and the tour guide gave us some great ideas for places to see.
This is a historic bridge built in the late 1800s. It was so amazing. The built it right into the bedrock and so when they were digging under the river workers kept dying. It was one of the first documented cases of the "bends" and the guy who designed the bridge also designed the first iron lung to treat the bends.

After our tour we went over to the arch. I was a little leery about going up to the top of it, but it turned out to be not as bad as I thought. You get in these tiny little pods that seat 5. There are about 7 of them. Then the door closes and you slowly rise to the top. Once you get to the top you can look out and get a great view of the city. On the way back down the people we shared our pod with were telling us about how the power went out once and people were stuck in these pods for an hour and a half. But luckily we made it down with no problems. I thought it was pretty funny that when you buy your ticket they ask you if you have trouble with heights, stairs and close spaces. And if you did what are they going to do about it?

This is during our tour. Just outside of the art museum which is located in Forrest Park. Forrest Park is a must see if you are in St. Louis. It is so beautiful. But more about that in my next post.