3/12/2009

Spring Break in St Louis


GeoTagged, [N38.76752, E90.49155]

The way spring break was supposed to go was Jenna and I in Mexico with a campaign group of Harding Academy kids. A group goes every year to an orphanage and works on building projects during the day while the kids are at school and play in the afternoons after school. Due tol the recent violence in Mexico the campaign was canceled. Last week a spot opened up in a campaign to Honduras. Jenna's best friend Kathryn's parents are the leaders of that campaign and they invited Jenna. So Jenna is in Honduras this week

The rest of us decided we needed to go somewhere fun. Before the Honduras option opened up we were considering going to the Grand Canyon but with Jenna gone we decided on a more reasonable trip. We met Julie's parents Wednesday morning in West Memphis and got the kids and headed north on I-55 to St Louis. We stopped at Sikeston to eat at Lamberts Cafe, the home of thrower rolls. A guy walks around the dinning room saying "hot rolls" and you just hold your hand up and he tosses one your way. Lamberts is a home cooking type of joint with every southern dish you could think of. The rolls are just the best and they are huge, almost 5" across.

After lunch Josie and I settled in for our afternoon nap as Julie drove us on north. As we were getting close to St Louis Josie woke up and asked where we were. Julie told he where we were and the next question out of Jo's mouth was "what do they speak here?" I guess she had heard so much about Spanish speaking in Mexico she just thought as far away from home as we were they must speak some other language. Tonight at the Cracker Barrell, the waitress was speaking a strange languge as she kept asking Josie if she needed anymore soda. Josie had no idea what soda was.

Today we went downtown to the Jefferson Memorial National Park and the Gateway Arch. The first thing we did was watch the movie about the building of the Arch. It is cool to see how the crains went up the outside of the Arch so they could pull the sections of the arch higher and higher. Here are a few facts Jackson would tell you if he was blogging because he is a fact machine.
1. The Arch is the tallest monument in a National Park at 630 feet.
2. None of the construction workers were killed during the project.
3. The tram that takes you to the top takes 4 minutes to get to the top. The trip from the top down only takes 3 minutes.
4. There are only 5 seats in the tram car but on the trip down they let all 6 of us go together by letting Josie sit on Julie's lap.

As we were getting ready to leave we ran into friends from Searcy in the gift shop. We had been talking earlier about how no one else from school would be in St Louis for Spring Break.

After we left the Arch we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois so the kids could add another state to their list of states visited. We drove for a while on Route 66 and Julie found a classic Drive-in Diner that all the kids turned their noses up to. Therefore we ended up at Cracker Barrel which was good. Julie is the navigator in the family and with GPS on her iPhone she is amazing. I am a terrible and can barely get by with GPS. After supper we roamed through the Bass Pro Shop next door to our hotel and then went back to the room to play cards. Julie and Lucy played Nerts and Jackson, Josie, Jalen and I played Slap Jack and War.

One last story from our trip. When we stopped to get a room the desk clerk looked shocked to see me wearing a Razorback sweatshirt. Turns out his grand parents live in Searcy and own the Catfish resturant that Julie and I ate in after Church on Sunday. Needless to say we got a great rate on our rooms.

If you are still reading here at the end of this epic post, Thanks I hope you have enjoyed it. Please forgive any typos as this is written from my iPhone. Also the photo of the Arch is made with my iPhone and processed into B&W with the Photogrne App.

2 comments:

Tammie's Thoughts said...

What fun! And it just goes to show that you have to be on your best behavior no matter where you are because you'll always run into someone you know or someone who knows someone you know....that's just how it is with the Harding family! And isn't it fun?!?

Tom T said...

Wow, I've never been there. How do you get a good photo of that arch with so many trees in the way? :)