My First Visit To St. Louis

Warning: this may be long :)

So 2010 has probably been one of my best but worst summers ever. The worst because my boyfriend has been gone literally alll summer long and is still gone. But the best because I got to travel a lot!! I got to see and do some of the best things that I would have never done in a million years. Here is my first trip of the Summer, I have a couple more to document, since I got behind and just been really busy.

July 31, 2010 I got off work early that Saturday afternoon, I was supposed to work until 6 but got to leave at 4 because we were just standing around doing absolutely nothing. I texted Josh, just joking of course, if I leave now i'll make it to St. Louis by like 3am and could be there for like 4 hours. He comes back with 4 hours is better than no hours, so I spontaneously got in my car and drove all the way to St. Louis. I made it all the way to St. Louis just fine, even though I-70 is a 400 mile long drive with nothing but cows and corn to look at. Once I got into St. Louis, the address Josh had given me for the hotel turned out to be an address of a legit house in the hood, and when I say hood I legit mean hood. So here I am driving around in circles trying to get back to a main road, found a BP gas station. I had this bright idea that I would stop and ask for directions, mind you its a Saturday night around 11pm Central Standard Time, I pulled into the parking lot and I was the only white person probably in the next 5 mile radius. I can usually handle my own but I legit feared for my life rollin through the hood in downtown St. Louis. It was definitly an experience. After arguing with Josh about where I was at and driving in circles ten different times I finally found my way back to a main road. Josh ended up meeting me on the corner of the road I was coming down and ended up driving to the hotel we stayed at. We were both irritated with one another but I hadn't seen him in 3 weeks. So once I calmed down and changed my clothes and made myself somewhat presentable, we went out to the bars in downtown St. Louis. Let me tell you how underdressed I was, I had on jeans and a black tank. Everyone else around us was actually dressy dressed up. I wasn't expecting it to be so formal like. We went into this first bar that was packed and was playing techno music, the wait to get a beer at the bar was outrageous. Me and Josh were looking around and they no shit had gogo dancers in cages. Josh looked at me and was like, Let's Go!!! I couldn't help but laugh. We ended up going to this Irish bar that played country music, and in Missouri you can still legally smoke in bars and restaurants (I don't know what Josh is gonna do when he comes home). We both had a shot of Jack Daniels and Jack and Coke, then we went back to our hotel that just so happened to be the old Union Station. Like, the very first train station ever invented, they turned it into a hotel, but left alot of the structure still up, it was really neat. I enjoyed it!! We ended up going to this bar that was in our hotel and eventually went back to our room and went to sleep in the biggest most comfortablest bed ever. I fell in love with this bed.

Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri

The old roofing from Union Station that they kept up

The next morning we woke up real early, got breakfast in the shopping plaza inside the Union Station. We then went and visited St. Louis. We drove down to the Mississippi River and the Arch. The Mississippi was raised up high that day, it was flooding out into the road and sidewalk. As we were walking we noticed a parking lot entrance and a set of stairs that led right into the river. We were both highly confused about this, and then we see and random fire hydryant just chillin in the river. We then came to the conclusion that it had to be a parking lot at some time before and the Mississippi just raised higher and higher over the years, but why wouldnt you block it off or something?? It was just random as can be. We drove all around St. Louis, saw a bunch of neat things and then it was about time for me to get back on the road to come home to good ol' Ohio. All in all I was there for like 13 hours I believe. So my spontaneous drive to see my baby was definitly worth the 9 hour drive.

The steps leading into the Mississippi River

The Arch :)

Me and My Babe