Fourth of July in St. Louis

We had an amazing Fourth of July weekend.  We found out that there were $50 round trip flights to St. Louis from this tiny little airport in Fort Dodge, so of course we had to take advantage of them. I used to live in St. Louis during my junior and senior year of high school (this is Dustan typing for once) and Ellen had never been there, so we decided to go!  I had work off Friday the 3rd and Monday the 6th, so we left Thursday night for St. Louis. The airplane we flew on there was hilarious!  It was a little crop duster that only seated 8 people.  The pilot was in the main cabin with all of us and there was no co-pilot (is that even legal??).  The nice thing about the flights though is that there was so much leg room!  Also, the seats reclined clear back!  So I loved them as I like to sleep the entire flight anyway.

Yes, that is the front of the plane.

We had so much fun in St. Louis! We stayed with Blake Dorton (one of my high school and college buddies) and his family the whole time.

Thursday night after flying in we ate at Steak 'n Shake for old time sake, and then got to bed early to get ready for a long day Friday which was great!

Friday, we woke up to waffles which Blake's mom made and then went straight to the City Museum which isn't anything like a museum at all. It's basically a 10 story jungle gym made out of scrap metals and junk.  You can climb up in the walls and through caves, there buses hanging over the side of the building to climb in and even a 10 story slide!  It was a blast!!

The ten story slide!

Pictures do not do this place justice

After a quick lunch and some pictures by the St. Louis arch, we headed over to Busch Stadium for an evening Cardinals game. It was a great game even though the Cardinals didn't pull out a win (we're convinced it was because Blake was there... he's bad luck).  After the game, they shot off fireworks at the stadium and we headed home for the night.  It was a great start to our weekend.

With our buddy Blake, happily third-wheeling all weekend

We filled our fourth with American activities and an unhealthy amount of meat. :) We slept in late enough that we started out our day with lunch at a barbecue place where we had pulled pork sandwiches.  After lunch we had a blast at the batting cages and playing mini golf. I came away from the batting cages with a new blister and a new-found respect for Ellen's softball skills! She couldn't miss! Also, you can't celebrate the fourth without a barbecue out in the sun! So we headed over to the Stanley's to swim in their pool and eat burgers.  So much fun!  It was really fun to see some old familiar faces and introduce Ellen to them as all.  I love showing off my wife :) Immediately after eating burgers, we went back to the Dorton's place for a hot dog eating contest.  I won with 6 hot dogs in 10 minutes (for the record, it was not worth it.. so full!!!) I gained a lot more respect for the winner of the Coney Island hot dog contest who ate 62 in 10 minutes.  GROSS!!

Dustan really enjoyed the hot dog eating contest

Sunday we went to church and caught up with some old friends and hung around the Dorton's place.

We finished out our trip strong on Monday by visiting the Science Center and the Zoo (everyone should visit if they are in town, because they are FREE).  We almost missed our flight because it took so long to lure Ellen away from the animals (she loved the polar bear exhibit).  We didn't really almost miss our flight, but St. Louis does have an awesome zoo :)

We built the arch! The St. Louis Science Center

After the zoo, we got ridiculously full at Fitz's on bottomless root beer mugs and toasted ravioli and headed to the airport.

Apparently St. Louis is famous for its toasted ravioli? It was delicious 

The Dorton family and our tower of root beer mugs. We drank about 16 altogether!

I wish I could say that our flight back was uneventful, but we made it halfway back to Fort Dodge (again in a tiny crop duster plane) and ended up having to turn back around because there were tornadoes in the way. So we spent one more night in St. Louis, and made it back in time for work Tuesday morning. Such a good weekend!! :)  We love taking trips together and making memories.