Baseball season is right around the corner, so what a perfect time to tour the St. Louis Cardinal's Busch Stadium. I read an article several months ago that called St. Louis "one of the last great baseball towns." It really is. I tell people all the time when they move here that they'll love the Cardinals before long. They usually respond, "No, we're not really baseball people." Wrong! This isn't about baseball folks, this is about a sense of community. St. Louisans love the Cardinals and their love is contagious. Trust me people, I think baseball is boring too, but there is nothing boring about St. Louis' adoration for its baseball team! Go Cards!
Anyway, this was an awesome adventure because Aunt Cari was visiting! She had two requests, to see the Eads Bridge and ride the MetroLink (the closest thing we have to a subway system or L-Train, though I've ridden both and the MetroLink hardly compares). Since I felt we needed something else to do downtown as well, I suggested the
Busch Stadium tour (Cari has done the Arch a couple times). Cari, who loves baseball, said a stadium tour would have been on the top of her list if she would have known they had one.
The tour starts outside of Busch Stadium at the Stan Musial statue. "Stan the Man" is the best Cardinal of all time. He died earlier this year and I was seriously tempted to attend the viewing, but thousands of people and a predicted 2 to 3 hour line kept me at home. The local channels even televised the funeral.
During the tour, you get to check out the Cardinal's World Championship trophies.
The Cardinals have won a 11 Word Series, second only to the Yankees.
You also get to see the various club rooms and places we'll never have the money to hang out in.
The view from the radio broadcast room is amazing! Too bad I didn't take a picture. However, the highlight of the trip was getting to visit the Cardinal Dugout. You can't walk on or touch the grass, but Ethan was so excited to walk on the warning track to the dugout.
After the tour we headed to
Laclede's Landing, next to the Arch. Laclede's Landing is where St. Louis got it's start. In 1763, a French merchant Pierre Laclede Liguest wanted to set up a trading post near the mouth of the Missouri river. The original area was too swampy and they staked out a place 20 miles south of where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers meet. The following year, Liguest left Auguste Chouteau to start a trading post. When he return, he called the settlement St. Louis after the King of France. Today, St. Louis' oldest district, Laclede's Landing is home to several restaurants, clubs and shops.
We headed to one of the few kid-friendly places in Laclede's Landing,
The Old Spaghetti Factory. The service was good, and the decor is fun, but I don't need to go back.
We then checked out the Eads bridge. The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River. When it was completed it was the largest arch bridge in the world and the first made primarily of steel. It was also a lot of other firsts you can read about
here. Another fun fact, they used an elephant to prove it was safe because, supposedly, elephants will not walk over anything unstable.
We then took the MetroLink across Eads Bridge. Cari was very excited.
A view of the Arch from the other side of the river.
Most of our adventure travel took place by the
MetroLink. Ethan loved taking the "train." It was nice to be able to hop on and off between stops, especially since it was cold outside. I'm still debating how economical it was for our outing, but if you don't want to have to mess with parking and are just going to a specific event or place, you might want to give it a try.
We miss you, Aunt Cari!
