ST. LOUIS

 Way back in January when Gary was planning the route, he set it up to hit a bunch of baseball parks to see games.  Well, then the divas went on strike and messed up our entire schedule.  We really wanted to see a game here and see Pujols in his last year but alas, it did not happen.  

Without being able to see a game and again battling the temps, we were scrambling for stuff to do.  We found an obscure but interesting telephone museum.  It had phones from the very first ones to today's cell phone and all the memorabilia (like the Yellow Pages) that go along with them.  Gary and I had a great time looking at the phones from the 70's and 80's and reminiscing.  In the same area was a Missouri Civil War museum.  Again turned out to be a surprise because we didn't realize how much Missouri contributed to the war.  Also in there is a sword that belonged to Abraham Lincoln.  The story goes that he was challenged to a duel and he got to pick the weapon.  Since the other guy was short, smart Abe picked swords.  The duel ended up not happening and the swords were lost for a very long time.  A guy found Abe's sword and donated it to the museum.  Amazing.

We also found the National Transportation Museum which was full of motorcycles, cars, many trains and one boat.  :)  Again, a huge surprise but worth a visit if you are ever in the area. 

We still had some time to kill and still battling the heat we went to the Science Museum.  Ended up again surprised and had some fun with one of their temporary exhibits.  It was an interactive hockey exhibit.  We got to time how many shots on goal we could make, shots at targets, reaction time as a goalie, etc...It was highly amusing.  

Our last night there we did our favorite thing which is meeting up with friends for dinner.  We went to "The Hill" which is the Italian district in St. Louis and had a yummy Italian dinner.  Thanks for meeting us, Pamela and Jason!

Onward!