Day trip to St Louis

My kids Fall Break was Friday, yesterday, and today.  For over a year I have been talking about taking my kids to the City Museum in St Louis.  The last time we went Lil Ewok was just a month old and he is now 6.  My oldest is 16 and I thought if we don't do it soon, the big kids will be to big.  Even though my high school age Girl Scout troop went and loved it.

I asked for yesterday off at work and a week ago I started doing my homework on what boxes I wanted to get in St Louis.  There is a Harry Potter series in a library that I though the kids would enjoy.  I get online to check their hours and discover they will be closed Columbus Day (the day we planned on going).  I checked the City Museum and due to their Winter Hours they would be closed too.  I checked on the Magic House and Grants Farm and they were all going to be closed.

I decided we would just letterbox and go in the arch.  The last time we went in the arch, the princess was a baby.  The kids would have been 6, 3, and a few months old.  I printed off clues for rest areas boxes there and back, Forest Park, and some graffiti ones near the arch.

As we are driving over the princess says she wants to go to an art museum.  I tell her there is a sculpture park with a few boxes and she got real excited.  I didn't have printed clues so we used my phone.  I prefer printed clues.

We got two rest area boxes on the way and went to Laumeier Sculpture Park.   The kids enjoyed goofing off here.  We looked for 3 boxes and found 2.  We left and ate lunch nearby.  I tried to talk the kids into going back after lunch to get 2 more but they didn't want to go.  It was pretty hot and the place was big.  As we were leaving we stopped in the office and discussed some of the sculptures from the clues that we didn't look for and I think we could have found the boxes easier after talking to the woman. Oh well.

Our tickets for the arch were at 4:50 pm.  We were the last trip up for the day.  As we get close to the arch I can tell that we are way to early for our tour.  We decide to look for the graffiti boxes near the painted flood wall.  The boxes were a little tricky to find but the kids enjoyed the graffiti wall.

When we were finished we went back to the arch and took a million pictures.  We were really tired from all the walking at the sculpture park and the high temps.  We didn't really pay attention to the stuff in the museum.  We got some goodies in the gift shop and sat down for a few minutes until our boarding time.  The kids loved it!  When we were done we went back to the bottom, the littles played in the fountain, we took more pictures, and headed back to the car.

Bantha Rider is in the process of getting his drivers license and drove us to St Louis and back.  He didn't like the stress of driving in the big city and all the signs we need to look for.

On the way home we stopped for ice cream and got another rest area box in the dark.  The sculpture park is so big, I wish I would have brought a box to plant.  An idea for next time.  We found 7 of the 8 boxes we looked for and left a hitchhiker.

Tombstone Tales Event

On Saturday, my boxing buddy (G-MA) and I went to the Tombstone Tales event in St Louis, Mo.  I picked her up at 7 and we drove 2.5-3 hrs to Bellefontaine Cemetery.

We arrived about 2 hours before the event to get the 2 large series of boxes planted there.  One of the series was easy to find.  They went along with the different symbols used on graves.  It was a very interesting series.

The other series was harder.  You were supposed to do your homework before you came to find the boxes.  But I had jury duty last week and my buddy didn't realize that there was homework.  And we discovered that we probably could not have found them anyway because we didn't have the right map.

So it maybe "slackboxing" but we would stop anytime we saw other people stopped.  Some folks were very helpful and said come on over and stamp on the back of my car.  And other folks said let us put it back and then you can find it.  When we stopped another car for help they just said I think it is over there somewhere :(

With all the issues we had with the clues, I was surprised that we actually found more than half of the hard series.

The event itself was just 2 hours.  We had a pitch in lunch and exchanged.  I really enjoy this part but I know G-MA does not.  She would rather be out boxing.  I got my exchanges quickly and we got out of there.  I got to exchange with wandaandpete!  We ended up leaving before the group photo but we were both ok with that.

I am now officially a member of the "Been Locked in a Cemetery" club.  The cemetery closed at 5 but we thought with the event they would be open longer.  We arrived at the gate a little after 5 and it was locked.  We called the number and about 15 minutes later (we should have got another box) the security guard came and let us out.  I guess she was out driving around the cemetery to see if anyone was locked in.  When she arrived there was another car with her that I had seen driving around taking pictures.

We found 26 boxes in 5 hours and are determined to come back and get more :)

St Louis Cookie Event

The Jewel Box in Forest Park.

Yesterday my boxing buddy and I went to St Louis, Mo to letterbox and go to an event.  We left home at 8am and arrived at Forest Park at about 10am.  We looked for 16 boxes; we found 15 and two hitchhikers!  It was a beautiful day in the park.  We also had a picnic lunch and I planted a box while we were there.

Stamping in the living room.

We got a little lost going from the park to the event so we were about 20 minutes late.  But we had a good time.  Everyone was supposed to bring cookies to share.  I was surprised to find that they had hid boxes around the house.

Stamping in the kitchen

I had already met a few of the people and I got to exchange with some new folks and get there PTs.  Of course there were a ton of table top boxes.  And my boxing buddy and I both won door prizes!  I ended up sitting on the floor because it was easier to stamp everything there.  We got home about 10:30pm.  It was a long day but a lot of fun :)