St. Louis, Missouri
On our way home from Nashville, Chelsea and I stopped in St. Louis Missouri for the night. We had wanted…
On our way home from Nashville, Chelsea and I stopped in St. Louis Missouri for the night. We had wanted to split up our driving time, and St. Louis was one of the only places on our route that had something worth seeing. We went to see the arch, but we ended up sampling some of St. Louis’s specialty foods.
I mean, did you know that there’s such a thing as St. Louis-style pizza? Well there is. It’s made with Provel cheese – a blend of cheddar, swiss and provolone cheeses – and it’s always cut into squares. According to the internet, the best and most well known place to eat it is Imo’s Pizza. Luckily we had one in our hotel so we didn’t have to go far for lunch. We shared a supreme pizza topped with that creamy cheese and Caesar salad. My thoughts on the pizza? It was pretty good. The flavor was great, but I felt as if it may have been over-cheesed by the cook.
Get ready to fall in love with chilly weather and shorter days with fresh new recipes for autumn!
After lunch we headed straight for the Gateway Arch. Obviously, it’s a must-see if you’re in St. Louis. You actually go underground to buy your tickets and get in line for the tram that takes you to the top.
That is the entrance to our tram car. It’s straight out of a 1960’s sci-fi movie, and we crowded into the car with a small family. The ascent was freaky. There were no windows to the outside so you couldn’t tell how far you were going, but you could tell you were moving as you watched the car climb through the interior workings of the arch.
When we got the the top, we couldn’t help but feel unstable. We peeked out the tiny windows to the city and river below, and I snapped a few pictures. After about 2 minutes, Chelsea and I looked at each other and panicked that we may have to stay up there for one more minute. I swear I’m not usually afraid of heights – I wasn’t bothered by the Eiffel Tower or the Space Needle – but something about this building made me feel out of sorts. We split up for the ride down so that we wouldn’t have to wait for another round of trams.
When we were back on solid ground, we wandered around the snow-covered park and enjoyed the arch from the bottom, and just before we left, the sun came out. The arch looked totally different in the new light. It was beautiful in an industrial, made-of-steel way.
We stopped at Three Sixty – the rooftop bar in our hotel – for drinks before dinner at Caleco’s. The restaurant was just across the street from our hotel, and we were too tired to look for somewhere else to eat. Conveniently, their menu included the remaining St. Louis foods that we wanted to try – Toasted Ravioli and Gooey Butter Cake. We shared the ravioli, which was surprisingly filled with beef, and some fettuccine alfredo. After dinner we were so full that we took the gooey butter cake to go (i.e. breakfast for the morning).
And that was it for St. Louis. We spent the rest of the night in the hotel watching TV and relaxing. Our fun filled road trip had come to an end, and there was a snowstorm rolling in the next morning. So we got up early to assess our driving options and eat our gooey butter cake before heading back to Wisconsin.
Where else can we go together?
- Weekend in Chicago
- Where to eat in Wisconsin Dells
- Afternoon in Nanaimo, British Columbia
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Girls weekend in Milwaukee
Published: March 13, 2014. Updated: April 6, 2022.
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