So, Will had his first clinical in St. Louis last weekend and I went with him. I got off work early on Friday and we got on the road around noon. Our first stop was the St. Louis Zoo.
Penguins!
This is hilarious!! Love the monkey on the right.
Checkin' out the hippos.
Now it's Arch time!
Will talked me in to going to the top of the Arch. I have never considered myself claustrophobic or afraid of heights, but just the thought of riding in that little tram thing to the very top of the arch terrified me!
If you look closely, you can see the small windows at the top.
The door to our tram. Isn't it creepy?!
The view straight down from the top of the Arch.
Will in the tram on the way down.
One of the trams on display in the lobby. See--Will is scared of it, too.
The Arch was fun. I'm glad I didn't die.
The next morning I had to take Will to SLU so that he could violate a couple of people--all in the name of science.
Will Gray, (future) PA
We were barely able to get out of the hotel parking lot. For some reason, every enterance out of the hotel was blocked off. Then we noticed some runners out and about and decided that there must be some kind of event or parade or something going on. One of the guys finally let us though though and Will was able to make it to SLU just in time.
It was a different story on the way back. The runners that we saw just a few minutes earlier had multiplied and so had the barracades. After asking one of the guys who was in charge of keeping the road blocked how I could get back to my hotel (he had no idea), I found out that what was happening was a marathon and that I was pretty much screwed. I WAS PISSED!!! EVERY SINGLE ENTRANCE to my hotel was blocked!! I had to park across the street and basically play a real life Frogger game and weave in and out of thousands of runners at 9:00 a.m. in 90 degree heat and probably 90% humidity. Some dude yelled "Hey, nice job getting across the street!"--if I had actually seen who said that, I would have punched him in the face.
Luckily, I did not get run over by any of the runners. As soon as I made it to the hotel, I immediately went to the front desk to explain to whoever would listen that I thought that it would have been nice to know that if I stayed there, I would be trapped in my hotel all Saturday morning. The lady was really nice and without me even asking (which I had no intention to), she refunded half of our room charge. She said that we should had been informed about the event and that she was very sorry. I was still pissed but not as bad as a few seconds ago.
When I got back to the hotel room, I turned on the tv and they were doing a live broadcast from outside our hotel! Apparently, what was really going on was a Walk for the Cure 5k run/walk for Breast Cancer and that there were 70,000 plus people participating and it all was happening on either side of our hotel!!!!! 70,000 flippin' people!!!
These pics are just from one side of the hotel. There were this many people on the other side, too. People everywhere!!! I think the run/walk for breast cancer is awesome. It just would have been nice to know that it was going on so that we could have stayed somewhere else. If Will hadn't been able to get out to go to his clinical--he would have been screwed.
We had a great time in St. Louis. It's always nice to get away for the weekend every now and then. But, we are home now and, don't worry, Will's hands have been washed several times.
P.S. Next time you are in St. Louis, eat at Pappy's. You will not be disappointed.
