As a matter of fact it was still raining pretty hard when we left a couple hours later and headed for the FUNNY BONE COMEDY CLUB where we saw Richard Boseman.  Pretty funny guy.  His opener, Andi Smith was funny too.  Both of them were a little rude but not so much that Vicki wasn't able to appreciate it.  We love live stand-up comedy and don't get to those types of shows often enough.

A couple hours, a lot of laughing, and a few fried pickles later we left the Funny Bone and thankfully the weather had cleared up.  We headed over to the President Casino which is located on board the Admiral Riverboat, which is  docked at the Laclede's Landing entertainment district.  We walked in with $200, found a couple of nickel slots and about an hour later walked out with $420!  Whoo Hoo! The next morning we took some of our winnings and bought a new digital camera... a smaller one than what we already owned.  Vicki had wanted to buy one before the trip but we decided against it at the time. Happy Anniversary to us! 

Saturday morning was warm and sunny and we headed out to The Arch.  We had visited The Arch several years earlier with the kids and Vicki, who is slightly claustrophobic and very much afraid of heights, pretty much stood in the center of the top room and tried not to panic for about 10 minutes until she was finally able to convince the rest of the family to leave and go back down.  The main purpose of this trip (for Vicki anyway) was to conquer The Arch.  And conquer it we did!  After watching a movie about the making of The Arch, we hopped in the teeny tiny elevator and traveled the four minutes it took to get to the top and despite the movement(!!!) and the CRAMPED space (how can such a HUGE monument have such a SMALL viewing area???) we were both able to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of our surroundings and the view.

<---cramped quarters
<---feeling movement

   Top & Center - 630 feet up!              ENJOYING THE VIEW!

Brian took this panoramic shot. (3 pictures and stitched them together on the computer)  Nice work!

And of course... our traditional self-portrait!

Once back down we walked through the Louis & Clark museum.....

...and then headed back outside to take some more pictures, which from the outside and on such a beautiful day, the pictures outside were just as impressive as the views from the top inside.

Look closely for the teeny tiny windows and viewing room at the top.  IT'Ss CRAZY!

We walked over to Laclede's Landing for lunch at Brian's favorite St. Louis restaurant....

Then drove a few miles down the road for a tour of the Budweiser Brewery!
The place is HUGE!  And spotless clean!

The horses are beautiful!

This tank mixes the malt with warm water until it is of porridge-like consistency. This mixture is called mash.

"Beechwood aging cellars". These tanks here, if you were to drink one beer every hour, twenty four hours a day, for one hundred and thirty years, you would get through ONE of these tanks.  That's a Lot of Beer! The plant recycles about 99 percent of its waste, including the Beachwood which is used for mulch around the city.  This is why St. Louis has some of the happiest squirrels in the country!

This canning line will package almost 2000 cans per minute!

Everybody in our group took pictures in front of this sink just because the sign told us to :-)
"This copper Grant was used by the Brewmaster to check the wort (amber liquid) for consistency and clarity as it flowed from the Straining Tank".

And we each got two free glasses of our choice of beer at the end of the tour.  The only thing better than beer is free beer! Whoo Hoo!

After the tour we headed back to our hotel to rest up and shower before going to dinner.  We had tickets to The Royal Dumpe which is an interactive dinner theatre. It was a home-style dinner in 16th century England atmosphere. An evening of Medieval Madness! Served by wenches, entertained by jesters... We had a blast!

Sunday morning was even warmer and brighter than the day before and we had yet another full day planned.  We started out by finding a local I-Hop restaurant as it had been 2 years since we had their stuffed french toast which we discovered on our 4th anniversary in Wisconsin Dells. After breakfast we headed to the St. Louis Science Center located in Forest Park and bought tickets for the Segway School. A few minutes of instruction and a dorky little hard hat later and we were off and moving!  Ok, so I think Vicki's top speed was 2 miles an hour and Brian might have topped 3, but it was enough to get a feel for the machine and see what all the hoopla was about.  They are actually very awesome machines, it was a fun 15 minutes, and if we ever get the chance to rent one for sightseeing, we would definitely take that opportunity!

 Click here for a 30 second video of us riding the Segway! (Windows media file, 2.53 MG)

After our mini Segway adventure, we drove to the other side of the park and parked near the Jewel Box which is just a HUGE terrarium.  We pulled our bikes out of the back of the van and hopped on the bike trail which was harder than Vicki thought (a lot of uphills) stopping at the zoo for a drink and short rest in the shade before riding back to where the van was parked. 

We put the bikes back in the van and pulled out our GPS.  We knew there were more than a couple of caches hidden in Forest Park and we set out to find at least two of them... which we did.
Vicki discovered "Jewel Box near the Jewel Box"

Brian discovered "Yo Adrian"

The last thing on our agenda was a visit to Laumeier Sculpture Park.  Vicki regretted being there almost as soon as we arrived but because it was her idea in the first place Brian insisted that if he was going to be dragged there, he was going to take pictures!  Here are some of our favorites...

Back to our room for a shower and change and then out to dinner at Landry's Seafood House for steak, shrimp, and champaign!

Our vacation in St. Louis was WAY too short!  There is SO MUCH to see and do in the area and we didn't even scratch the surface.  We stayed at the Hyatt Regency at Union Station... an awesome luxury hotel with the absolute most comfortable bed in the whole wide world!  The following pictures show Vicki on the staircase at the hotel entrance,  and the Grand Hall Lounge found at the top of that staircase which is luxury talk for "hotel lobby".   Just Beautiful!  The two room pictures were taken from the hotel web site and actually show our room exactly as it was.  We don't usually like to spend too much of our money on accommodations but since we didn't have to bring the dogs with us and pay for boarding them, we decided to splurge a little and am so glad we did.  We LOVED our stay at this hotel! 
 

We woke up Monday morning, packed up and checked out.  We crossed the state line and couldn't help but stop at the Casino Queen in Illinois for another try at the slots.  It took us about an hour to lose 50 bucks but even after that loss and buying the camera we still had some of our original $200 left so all in all we did good.  A little farther down the road we pulled off the highway to visit Cahokia Mounds State Park.  Unfortunately, the Interpretive Center was closed and we weren't able to fully appreciate this historic site.  We did climb to the top of  Monk's Mound (the largest man-made earthen mound in North America. Facing south, it stands about 100 feet high with a base 1,037 feet long and 790 feet wide) and from the top we were able to look back one last time at St. Louis and the Arch.....

Almost two weeks after arriving home we received a small envelope in the mail from Penny Press Midwest.  After checking out of our hotel room, before we headed out of town, we took a little bit of time to stroll through the mall and peek in the store windows.  It was very quiet... the stores were still closed... and it was just nice to walk around and window-shop without all the hustle and bustle.  We happened upon one of those souvenir machines where you punch your letters into a lucky "coin", and after trying for several minutes to come up with just the right number of letters to make just the right phrase, we came up with "Brian & Vicki St. Louis 6-8-2008".  It was fun to select the letters and pull the lever and when the time came to pull the other lever that releases the coin.... nothing happened.  What a let down!  It was only a dollar lost, we weren't upset about that,  but we were soooo disappointed in not getting the little memento coin we had just struggled so hard to figure out and create.  Then we noticed the phone number on the machine!  So Vicki called the number and left a message on the answering machine, including her name and our home address along with the message that we wanted on the coin.  What a Wonderful Wonderful Sweet Surprise to have the thing show up in our mailbox in Indiana 12 days later!  We thought that was SO COOL that Vicki called the number again, this time getting the owner of the machine on the phone and was able to to thank him personally.  He said Vicki made his day... but he really did make ours!