St. Louis

I spent the last week in St. Louis visiting my brother and his family. He has a girl and a boy that are year behind my kids (my mom got grandkids in four straight years) plus an infant. The kids got along great even though they are very different personalities.
My family has deep roots in the St. Louis area. My mom grew up in Cahokia and met my dad while he was attending Parks College. My brother also attended Parks and worked for Anheuser-Busch before moving to Merrill Lynch.
We hit some great sites this trip:

• St. Louis Zoo - an awesome zoo and free to boot! It was pretty cold so alot of the animals were off exhibit keeping warm. However, the antelopes and other hoofed animals were in a big barn. You could get very close to them and the highlight were the giraffes.


• The City Museum - probably the greatest playground/children's museum I have seen. It has to be seen to be believed. If you have kids and are in the area, plan a day to go here. We stayed for over 7 hours and kids didn't want to leave.


• U.S. Grant Historical Site - a small, but very interesting park. It contains the house that the Grant's owned. The rangers where extremely informative. I plan on visiting this park again when the museum is finished.


• Jefferson National Expansion Memorial - best known for the Gateway Arch, this park also has a good museum and a great film on Lewis & Clark. The arch is not for the claustrophobic or altophobic. Imagine getting into a large clothes dryer and going straight up for over 600 feet. The angle of the viewing windows at the top let you see behind the arch.