St. Louis Trip

Since it was Spring Break here this past week we decided to head to St. Louis for a couple of days. I had worked there a couple of times during my PI days, but the rest of the family had never been. Plus it was relatively close. We decided to see if we could do it on a budget of $200. We actually were able to stay in that budget, believe it or not.

We began our journey around 8:00 am on Tuesday morning. The drive was kinda boring, since it is all just flat. Not a lot to see. We ended up arriving in St. Louis around noon our time. They are an hour behind us. Autumn had found several things to do that would cost us little or no money. One of them being the Holocaust Museum. After reading Anne Frank for school, my daughter has been kind of fascinated with the whole thing and was very interested in the museum. I can only say that it was very interesting and depressing all at the same time.












We then headed to the St. Louis Science Center, which is also free. You just have to pay to park. I think it took us around 3 hours to see all of the exhibits. Tons to see and do. They had an exhibit that we thought was the T-Rex "Sue". It was not. It was an anamotronic version. We decided that since we had seen replicas of Sue at Disney, we did not need to spend the money to see one that moved.

As we left the science center it had began to rain. So we decided to head to Union Station. I will say that I was not too impressed. Yeah, the architecture is cool, but other than that it is just small shops and restaurants. Glad we saw it, but don't think we will have to do it again. After that we decided we would head to the hotel and check in. After a little time in the pool and hot tub we called it a night.

Wednesday we headed to the St. Louis Zoo. I was very impressed. The zoo like most of the things we did was free. The only fee would have been to park, but we arrived early enough to find some street parking. So we parked for free. The zoo is large. I think we spent about 6 hours wandering around seeing the animals. One of my favorites was the tigers. They had five that were young and active. Most of the other animals at the zoo, with the exception of the monkeys
just kind of laid around.

After spending all of that time walking around the zoo we decided that we were ready to head back to the hotel and relax. So we grabbed a pizza and headed back to the room. After eating we headed to the pool and hot tub for awhile before returning to the room in time to watch Lost. Even on vacation we can't miss that.

Thursday was our last day. After having some breakfast and checking out, we headed to the Ulysses S. Grant historic home site. I will say that I was not too excited about this, but it turned out to be pretty cool. One thing that was cool was that the property next to the site was owned by Budweiser and is where they stable the Clydesdales. There were probably 25 to 30 out to pasture that day.

We then headed to the St. Louis Arch. Unfortunately for some reason the trams that take you to the top were not running, so we could not go up in the arch. It is still very impressive.


After spending a couple of hours checking out the arch, we headed home. We ended up getting home around 8:00 pm Thursday night. Not too bad. All in all it was a good short vacation. I would have loved to have just headed to a beach, but with Disney coming up in about 3 months we are trying to save as much money as possible.

So that is how we spent our Spring Break. Back to work and school on Monday.

Yeti Out!!!!!!!!!

Check Out My Parent's New Pet

Yesterday my brother and his family came in for a visit. Since this does not happen that often, with the way he has to travel with work, my parents took it as an opportunity to get everyone together for lunch. It was a great visit.

Earlier in the week my mom had told me that a young deer had shown up and that she would follow you around and let you pet her. I knew that my kids would love this. To my amazement, it is true. All you have to do is head into the back field of my parents property and call. Within a few minutes she will show up.

So, without further adieu here she is:

Letting my niece feed her corn.

Hoping my son had some corn.

They are not sure just where she came from, but she is extremely tame and not scared of people. This could actually be a bad thing, since people can be jackasses. Her ears are pretty messed up. We think that one of them may have been cut at the top, maybe to mark her or maybe out of cruelty. The other on is split and looks like it may have been caught in a barbed wire fence. My parents are currently talking with local conservation officers and looking for a possible place for her to go where she would be safe. Hopefully that works out. I would hate to see something happen to her. It is a shame that someone found/took her as a baby and tamed her only to turn her loose. That may not be the case, and she may have just strayed away from her home. But I would be willing to bet that she was just turned loose or dumped.

Anyway, she is pretty damn cool.

Yeti Out!!!!

Pictures

Last night the moon looked amazing. So I decided I would try and take some pictures. The first couple did not turn out. So I jumped online and found out how to set the camera to take moon pictures.

I found this site which was very informative.

Here are a couple of the pictures.


I am still trying to figure out how to use my camera. These are my first successful manual photos.

Yeti Out!!!

Like A Walk In The Park

Well it has been almost a month to the day since I last posted. At that time things seemed a little crazy where I work. So far since that terrible day things have somewhat calmed down. The only scary thing is that everyday the news keeps reporting that the stock market has reached a new low. It is concerning, but I am not going to go through my life worrying about what might happen. I feel that if you do that, then you are not enjoying life. You are just hoping that it doesn't effect you.

Enough of that.

As far as the title of this post, the weather around here for this weekend is extremely nice. So yesterday my wife and I decided to head to the Charlestown State Park with Cooper and do a little hiking. I had never hiked in the park before. It was a very enjoyable afternoon. We ended up hiking Trail 3, which is a little over 3 miles. By the time we returned to the car Cooper was ready to head home. I was a little disappointed by the amount of garbage that I saw along the trail. I don't understand why people have to be such assholes.

Here are a few pics. Enjoy.

Alright, it is hovering close to 70 degrees here right now. So I am going to head outside and enjoy some much welcomed sunshine.

Yeti Out!!!!!!!!!!