St. Louis Adventures

Admittedly, a Halloween trip to St. Louis, Mo is not your average vacation, but we Morningstars are anything but cliched!  My cousin, Teddy, in an equally non-cliched move, opted for a Halloween wedding and we figured that if we were going to cart 6 people halfway across the US we were going to make a proper vacation of it!

We had a fantastic exploring a new city and catching up with seldom-seen family. The weather was great, the company delightful, and we managed to pack 5 days chock full of Gateway to the West adventures.

There was no question about it, we new our first excursion had to be to The Gateway Arch. This is mostly because The Arch was pretty much the only thing we knew about St. Louis. To be frank, we didn't even know it was called The Gateway Arch. As with everything in St. Louis, we went with fairly low expectations and no preconceived notions and had a fabulous time! Maybe the key to a fantastic vacation is zero preparation or knowledge of the place you're visiting?

The girls were so funny as they eventually reconciled that the arch was actually a giant building - a building we were going inside! Once they understood the plan, they were totally stoked.

Man, those 5-person elevator pods were small

We made it!

They say you can see 30 miles from the top of the arch and we believe it!

A contingent of us went over to Illinois to get another view on the arch - it's cool from all angles

Day 2 of St. Louis exploration was a big one. We started the day at the very cool Missouri Botanical Garden, one of the oldest gardens in the nation. In happy coincidence, I'm reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi which, funnily enough, even mentions the Missouri Botanical Garden.

There were two highlights of the gardens:

1. The koi in the pond were ginormous. Terrifyingly huge. Awesome.
2. We got to walk around the gardens with glasses of wine purchased at a garden cafe. St. Louis is a wonderland!

Sasha and Grammy inspect the garden map at lunch.

Day 2 Stop 2 was The Magic House, the St. Louis Children's Museum.

It was so stinking cool! The Magic House is an old mansion built in 1901 and converted to a children's museum in 1979. It houses new discovery down every hidden stairway and hidden in every attic room, and we all had a shockingly good time (sorry, couldn't resist the Van de Graaff humor!).

Detective Sasha inspects the ducts for clues in the Sherlock Holmes exhibit (you can tell she's undercover by the glasses)

Ben the Bubble Boy!

WanYing tries out her constructing skills

And of course we tried out some amazing St. Louis BBQ. I think we licked every plate clean, from the fried corn (pictured) to the burnt end brisket and everything in between.

Wedding photo day was admittedly challenging because:

1. We had to dress up for family pictures
2. We had to wait for our turn
3. The kids were dying to put on their costumes (remember the part about a Halloween wedding? we weren't kidding!)

But never fear, we perservered and got some mighty fine photos in the process.

Sasha looks adorable, WanYing makes a little mischief.

Beautiful girls!

We do clean up nicely

And we can get awfully crazy no matter how fancy our outsides look!

Saturday brought a family trip to the St. Louis Zoo, which is both very cool and free. Unless you have to purchase carrousel, train, and children's zoo tickets. Which, of course, we did.

The Children's Zoo totally paid off - there were goats that needed grooming and you know our girls were up for the challenge!

Ugh. Goats.

The boys were thrilled to get a whole gaggle of people interested in this exhibit. It turns out that if you express interest in a cage, even an empty cage, people will crowd around to see what's so interesting!

And we concluded our visit with the best outing of all - The City Museum! The City Museum is tough to describe... it's like a giant playground for all ages (all ages willing to scramble up, through, and around small spaces and get some very bruised knees in the process!). It was amazing.

Part sculpture, part playground, all fun!

Like we said, you have to be ok with small spaces..

...and lots of climbing and maybe some heights as well!

3- and 4-story slides abound

As do 11-story ones!

Seriously, we all slept very soundly after all that climbing

Why walk on the platform when you can wiggle through under it?

There was always a new nook, cranny, ladder, or slide to discover

The view from the rooftop ferris wheel was almost as good as the arch! But a lot colder :)

Ok, this was the only time I got really nervous. Climbing into the cage at the top of the giant dome seemed like a good idea from the bottom. From within the cage it was very disconcerting.

The City Museum was a fantastic end to a really great vacation. If we ever find ourselves in St. Louis, I have a feeling we'll be visiting The City Museum again. Repeatedly.

Picky Pizza Posters - Talayna's Pizza of St. Louis

The ultimate quest for the worst pizza experience in Utah Valley the Northern Hemisphere

A diversity exercise in regional pizza types

For this special edition of picky pizza posters, we write to you from the great mid-west city of St. Louis, Missouri - Gateway to the West. We traveled to St. Louis for Jamie’s cousin, Teddy's, Halloween wedding and figured that if we were carting 6 people out to a new city we should make it a proper vacation and experience all that St. Louis has to offer!

Mmm... processed cheese food product

While exploring this lovely city, we’ve discovered that there is a local variety of pizza that can only be found here in St. Louis. Creatively named St. Louis-style pizza, its trademark qualities are tavern cut slices (squares), cracker thin crust made without yeast, sweeter than usual tomato sauce, and a special type of cheese called Provel which is described as a mixture of provolone and Velveeta. I know what you're thinking - with a description so appetizing, it's strange that St. Louis pizza hasn't become the US-dominant style! You'll also be shocked to know that Provel cheese is not distributed outside of the greater-St. Louis area. Weird.

But such is our commitment to Picky Pizza Posters, possibly the best-read bad pizza blog in Utah Valley, that we pushed through the terrifying Wikipedia descriptions of and our cousins' warnings against St. Louis-style pizza and actually consumed said pizza. And we lived to tell the tale because, really, once you've eaten a "fresh baked pizza" under the gas pumps of your local 7-Eleven, you can survive pretty much any pizza.

As not-good as St. Louis-style pizza is, we have to admit that its St. Louis-style appetizer cousin, toasted ravioli, is awesome

Ambiance

The large party of middle school soccer players at the center makes it noisy. The walls are decorated with random posters highlighting Italian regions that I’ve never heard of. Probably time to visit Italy again.

We sit at formica tables, in pleather booths. Both hallmarks of a good pizza restaurant.

Football playing on the TV. Apparently some team named "the Rams" is popular here. Never heard of them.

Beverages

Mostly domestic beers by the bottle. I have 2 beers in front of me - how does this happen? Missouri is a wonderland! Yesterday I got wine with lunch at the botanical garden and was allowed to walk around the gardens with it. I have no words to express how shocking and liberating it was to walk around in public with alcohol I didn't have to pour into an empty root beer bottle.  Ha ha just kidding. Gatorade bottles work better, they have wider mouths.

The Sierra Mist is really good (St. Louis seems to be a Pepsi town. Fortunately during a winter trip to Snowbird this year (a Pepsi resort), we convinced the girls that Sierra Mist is "fancy Sprite" so they're enthusiastic Pepsi fans now. Ben has developed quite the love for Fitz's root beer, so we're all doing fine in the soft drink department)

Service

The waiter runs with overeager enthusiasm - there is a large sports team party here and he is clearly flustered.

Soda glasses remain full, yet our group could always use one more basket of bread (this is normal, our bread bellies never fill). Real butter pats are a big plus - God bless the heartland

Price of one large cheese 

$16

Pizza impressions

Such adorable little pieces!

(St. Louis-style) Paper-thin crust. Crackers are thicker. It's so St. Louisy you can almost taste the arch in it. The cheese mixture different, but not off-putting; it has a slight butter taste and smooth texture. Very crunchy crust with many crustless pieces, much like toddler PBJ sandwiches.

WanYing : This cheese is weird!

A comparison of St. Louis, NY, and Chicago slices

Sasha: Yum! Cheesy!

To add to our experience chart, we also ordered a Chicago-style pizza. Since this is as close we’ve ever been to Illinois, we figured this is the best place to get a feel for what good Chicago pie is like.

(Chicago-style) Crust is not doughy crust but cakey - almost biscuit like. The cheese under the sauce. I repeat, the cheese is under the sauce.

Sam: Tomatoes everywhere? This thing is backwards. [Sam wouldn't touch this abomination of pizza with a 10-foot pole]

Dad: This puts the pie in pizza pie.

Rating

Given that our St. Louis pizza experience was an exercise in pizza style diversity and horizon-broadening, we have decided not to rate our meal at Talayana's Pizza of St. Louis. Suffice it to say our meal was full of laughs and happy bellies and we would not voluntarily consume St. Louis-style pizza again.

Halloween 2014 (or, how to dress up for a wedding)

Here we are, all cleaned up for pictures

Halloween 2014 was a different kind of holiday for us - instead of our usual party at home, we were in St. Louis hanging out with family at my cousin's wedding. While a Halloween wedding is admittedly unusual, we had a blast checking out a new city (photos to come), hanging out with family, and looking awesome for my cousin's wedding.

And here we are, presto chango, looking even awesomer for the wedding. Trust us, the kids changed out of their photo clothes in record time. And we like to think we brought a little sparkle to the bride and groom's day - how could you not feel awesome walking down the aisle with all of your favorite (and creatively contrived) Star Wars characters greeting you?!?

Episode 4 Luke Skywalker

Episode 4 Luke is always ready for a battle (plus he hates smiling for photos)

Compare the original - we are slaves to the detail!

Han is always too cool for school

Episode 4 Han Solo strikes a pose

Sam may rival Mr. Ford for the coolest space smuggler award

Sasha was determined to be something cute and cuddly this Halloween, so of course she's an Ewok!

Cutest Ewok around!

And Miss Ying makes an appearance as Princess Darth Vadar

(We're pretty sure she's an upcoming character in Episode 7)

And a good time was had by all!