A weekend in St. Louis Part 2: The Zoo and The St. Louis Science Center

Okay if you missed part one, go here to read about our adventure at City Museum.  When we got back to the hotel late, I was exhausted, but the head cold I had been battling reared it's ugly head and I couldn't breath.  No breathing equals no sleeping.  I had two very big pillows, so was trying to sleep sitting up, but no bueno.  I tried going into the bathroom and running hot water so that steam enveloped the room, which did open up my sinuses, but only for a limited time.  I know I got a few minutes of sleep here and there, but overall, I am betting I got no more than 3 hours of continuous sleep.  Since Tony knew I had had a rough night, he got up and went to breakfast with the family while Andrew and I slept in.  Our goal for the day was the zoo.  Unfortunately, by the time we got up and going and over to the zoo, the entire Forest Park area was FULL of cars, and we sat in bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour and NEVER found any parking.  Well, I take that back, we found one spot, which didn't help since we were in two cars.  We abandoned the zoo idea and headed over to Grant's Farm, which was also VERY FULL.  We just gave up and settled on a BBQ restaurant for lunch and a trip to walgreens for drugs (so I could get some sleep), and a treat for andrew for being so good while we sat in traffic.  Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel for more swimming freezing to death , and an early dinner down on Washington Street.

 Both Andrew and I did not feel great, but we were both making the best of it.  After some pizza for the little man and a beer tasting at a local small brewery (that was not good:(, we headed back to the hotel.  Little man fell asleep as we walked back, so we hit the hay early and watched some tv.  We actually caught Beyonce's Lemonade movie on HBO.  I am still really, really confused.

While I had bought tons of nasal decongestants, I had nothing that was working for the horrible sore throat that I was having thanks to all of the drainage. Night two ended up with me getting very little sleep again.  I finally googled sore throat remedies and found that taking a massive dose of advil works in some cases, and luckily that worked for me that night.  The next morning, we had a nice breakfast at the hotel before packing up and heading out.  Tony was hell bent on us visiting the zoo, but once again, it was completely full by the time we headed over.  At least this time they had signs up BEFORE we got off at the exit warning us.  We decided to try the St. Louis Science Center instead.

Fish bones

Amazing stuff to watch!

This place has something for all ages.  We spent 3 hours there, and still didn't get to do all of the things.  Admission is free, but some of the exhibits and rooms have a fee to get in.  Pay the money and DO them.  You won't be sad that you did.  We built rockets, flew planes, watched tornadoes form, felt an earthquake, built a minion (damn you build a bear), learned to fly like birds, and learned SO much.  Here are some pictures!

Mindball.  Relax your mind to move your ball to your opponent's goal

green screen shots LOL

Minion love

Dig for dinosaur bones and watch real scientists work on real dino bones in the lab next door

Build!

Tornadoes!

I am so glad that we missed the zoo and found this place instead!  While the zoo is cool, we have cool zoos at home, but we don't have cool science museums (unless people of Kansas can tell us where to go)!    After several hours of playing and discovering, we headed back to Kansas.  We got home right before the storms hit luckily!  We are still recovering from our trip but still smiling about the memories:)  We are looking forward to another mini vacation in June to see Mel and Pat get married out in Colorado.