spring break 2015

Why St. Louis?

The short answer is - why not?

The longer version goes something like this: no snow, no switching weekends in Wisconsin, smoked ribs and the City Museum.

Yeah, the City Museum is a repeat venue for us. Somebody told us about it 4 years ago, and the kids have been begging to go back ever since.

So why did nobody ever tell us about this FREAKING AWESOME zoo?!

We thought we'd spend a couple of hours here and soak up some sunshine. After all, we'd been to Henry Doorly twice, what could this place possibly have that we haven't seen? Well, whatever it was, took us six hours, and we didn't even see all of it. 

Admission is free. Throw in our MN zoo membership and for $5 we had unlimited train rides, carousel, 4D Dinosaur rides, and children's zoo. All of us loved something different. Punk loved the elephants and having a rare blue morpho butterfly land on him in the insectarium. Kooka loved the hippos, meerkats and big eared foxes. Yoda loved the rhinos and acrylic slide that ran underwater right through the otter habitat.

Speaking of habitats - they're huge. The elephants have a small village to themselves, the lowland gorillas have four viewing areas, while the rhino, the sea lion, the giraffes and kangaroos all have more space than any zoo we've ever visited. As Punk so eloquently put it when checking out a habitat complete with hammock, waterfall, lounging point, shade trees, jungle gym, hidey-hole and giant stashes of fruit, "Whoa, that red bear's life is straight up better than mine."

After the zoo, it was off to Fitz's on the St. Louis loop for coney dogs, burgers with fresh roasted chilies, key lime and tutti frutti floats, and fresh brewed root beer. 

It's only 65 degrees here, but it beats fighting the crowds in Florida and the snow back home.