Labor Day Weekend

You all really surprised me about two weeks ago when Life Is A Highway emerged as my FIFTH most read post of the year! That lil’ recap of my drive from Cutesville to Jacksonville was honestly intended to be nothing more than a filler blog to ensure I maintained my one post a week streak. Seeing that story soar past such 2020 heavyweights as The Original Sweet and Come Clean told me that you all are here for my adventurous content, and you all know me, I never want to disappoint my audience.

This past Labor Day Weekend, one of mine and Melissa’s absolute best friends, Kamber, came to stay with us all the way from San Bernardino, California. Right here, right now, I want all my Californian friends and family to take note of this! Since Kamber came and stayed, you need to start making plans to do so as well! Anyway, we only had three days to spend with our friend and believe me, we certainly made the most of them! Thankfully, Sunday and Monday fell beautifully into place, but the lineup I conceived for us on Saturday resulted in a 20,000 step day! You can bet that come Sunday morning, our dogs were seriously barking!

We kicked off Saturday with a 10:00 a.m. reservation at the St. Louis Zoo. For those readers not from the great city of St. Louis, you’ll perhaps be surprised to learn that this world-class attraction of ours is free. Yes, that’s right, the St. Louis Zoo is FREE OF CHARGE! Consistently ranked as America’s #1 zoo, our zoo has truly spoiled me for life. I only ever went to the San Diego Zoo one time in the more than three years I lived out in California because I could never justify spending $50+ for an attraction that honestly isn’t any better than the FREE version I had back in St. Louis and Kamber, who like I mentioned lives in California now, very much seconds that emotion.

Now given that we were there on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, I figured it would be busy, and it was, but with the abundance of open spaces, I never once felt unsafe in regards to social distancing suggestions. Also, I would like to say that I was quite pleased to see a solid 90% of everyone wearing their masks at all times.

The four of us (we had picked Nancy up prior) walked around the zoo for over three hours! I was a bit sad that my favorite place in the entire zoo, The Bird Garden, was swarming with people, so we opted to skip it, but I did find myself a sonically blessed consolation prize.

We heard Bobby Brown’s jam, Every Little Step, three different times and let me tell you what – I LOVE THAT SONG! First in line for the Zoo Line Railroad (Nancy’s a Zoo Member and got us aboard for free!), then when we got off the train it was playing again at the same station, and lastly, it was blasting from another train station’s speakers as we were heading out. Their music must be on a thirty minute loop, but I didn’t mind one bit! Gimme all the 80’s pop hits you can please!

We made a quick lunch stop at McAlister’s Deli because Kamber was craving some of that sweet tea nectar of the Gods and who can blame her!?! Their sweet tea is THE BEST!

We then went to the still-fairly-new St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station and let me tell you all what – IT WAS SO INCREDIBLY CROWDED! Because they’re operating at half capacity, we had to make reservations before going, just as we did for the zoo, but my goodness! If that was half capacity – I would HATE to see what full capacity looks like! I know in the 1940’s more than 100,000 people a day passed through Union Station, but I certainly don’t think that same number should be doing so in the 2020’s during a pandemic!

As you can imagine, not much social distancing was going on here, but everyone was wearing masks, so thank goodness for that. For those who haven’t been yet, the aquarium flows through a multi-level path and some of the rooms are significantly smaller than others, which on this day often caused quite the bottleneck. We definitely didn’t spend much time in these areas, which was a real shame because it was only our second time going (we’re annual passholders) and Kamber had obviously never been. The true highlight of this experience for me though was THE RESTROOMS! Needless to say, pretty sure I visited them all and while the restrooms themselves were pretty standard issue, they were all enhanced with THE BEST smell I feel like I’ve ever smelt in a restroom before! They smelled like tropical fruit stands and I just couldn’t get enough of that scent! If and when you go to the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station be sure to immerse yourself in the restrooms because the smell is definitely a can’t miss attraction!

We then walked downtown St. Louis from Union Station to The Selfie Room on Washington Avenue and had yet another phenomenal experience! If you love taking pictures in unique and tasteful settings then you MUST visit The Selfie Room! Melissa actually won an annual pass in an Instagram contest months ago, so needless to say, I had to buy one and we’re so happy we have them! They alternate their scenes every couple of months and are about to do so here again in mid-September and we cannot wait to see what they have next! Always an awesome time!

We walked back to Union Station and had dinner at Landry’s Seafood House. The place was packed and despite them no longer taking any walk-ups, my Landry’s VIP card ensured that we got seated immediately. I got this little piece of plastic gold at the Rainforest Café in Disneyland several years ago and am ever-so-thankful I did! Treatment like this is the life I envision for myself once my book hits it big!

On Sunday we went up to Grafton and rode the Sky Tour (skilift) up to the Aerie Winery and Resort atop the bluffs where the view was honestly unrivaled! The ride itself took between 20 and 30 minutes and I’m glad it did, it was just breathtaking the whole way! We only got appetizers, but the food was delicious and the service was incredible! It was extremely windy, but that kind of just made it real atmospheric for me. I loved everything about this experience! If you haven’t done this yet – do so soon – I imagine the fall colors on the trees will enhance the experience ten fold! I lowkey super want to go back in like three or four weeks because it was just amazing and I want to see that fall foliage from this aerial point of view SO badly!

Because we hadn’t got enough steps in the day before, we took a SIUE (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) walk around campus that evening because the four of us all went there years ago. While Nancy, Kamber and I all had a pleasant stroll, Melissa was Scared To Death the entire time! Almost right away we saw a cicada lying down on our path and that manifested a fear in her that every single one on campus was just going to start dive-bombing her at every turn. Melissa hates them more than anything else in this entire world and while I agree that they’re absolutely disgusting, they don’t bite, and overall are just harmlessly nasty. That definitely doesn’t matter to her though, she was twitching and convulsing as we walked like a cartoon character would that had just ate something overly hot or poisonous. I really wish I would’ve filmed her so you all could see just how she behaves when those things are around. It’s truly quite the view – not as beautiful by any means as the one we had earlier that day in Grafton – but certainly every bit as entertaining.

Our fortunes took a turn for the worse that evening when we finally watched Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan. I’m not going to get too into it because it inspired me to write another blog, but let me just say, I was not lovin’ it.

The next morning we went and had breakfast at Rooster on South Grand in St. Louis and while the food was fine, the service was abysmal! We were there for nearly 90 minutes! We only saw our waiter when it was necessary for him to come to our table and it took us nearly an hour to get our food. We were incredibly disappointed.

We then went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens and while it was basically 98º, we still had an enjoyable enough time. There was literally hardly anyone else there, which was nice, because it was just so damn hot that we were thankful to not have to deal with any crowds too. I often forget how much I enjoy the gardens and definitely want to go back next month when the weather is more accomodating. Sadly, after about fifteen minutes, none of us were in the mood to take any pictures because we were all swimming in our own sweat, but thankfully, we took no shortage of photos the two days prior. You all know how I live for my pictures!

We had THE BEST time experiencing so many of the world-class experiences that St. Louis has to offer this past Labor Day weekend! It had been too long since we’d done some of those attractions and it was wonderful to discover some new favorites as well! We’re truly blessed that Cutesville, USA is just right across the river from a city as phenomenal as St. Louis, Missouri!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this read! Feel free to leave me a comment below with your take on any of these outstanding places! You all know I LOVE reading your comments, so please keep them coming! I’ll return next week with another brand new blog, so until then, have THE BEST week ever!