Meet Me in St. Louis

About a week before we came back to Illinois, my parents received news that one of their dear friends had passed away. They wanted to attend the memorial service on June 27 in Columbia, MO – but didn’t want to cut our visit with them short. Knowing how close they were to their friend and his family, we totally understood. Since we were planning a day trip down to Springfield anyway and the Cubs just so happened to be playing the Cardinals in St. Louis, it was easy to find a way to entertain ourselves while my mom and dad were out of town. And thanks to a couple of great guys from my hometown, we were able to get tickets to the game tonight!

It started to rain as we were driving to Springfield. Actually, torrential downpour is more accurate – the scary kind where your windshield wipers cannot go fast enough, and semi-trucks are kicking up more water on top of that. If only there were a way to import some of that rain to California!

We had originally planned to go to Lincoln’s Tomb first, but decided to skip that and head straight for the Illinois State Capitol instead. I told you that I was feeding my compulsions on this trip…

It’s a beautiful building – much nicer than the capitol building in Sacramento, in our opinion, though not quite as large.

"Illinois Welcoming the World"

House of Representatives

Senate

Looking up at the capitol dome

As we continued south towards our next stop, the skies cleared. We had lunch at (where else?!) Steak ‘n Shake, then headed over to the Lewis & Clark State Historic Site. This re-creation of Camp River Dubois, the expedition’s winter encampment before embarking on their famous journey, is located near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. However, the original campsite is now submerged beneath the river.

Keelboat

Hands-on exhibits are always a hit!

From here, it was just a little further to our hotel in downtown St. Louis, just across the street from Busch Stadium. We checked in – our blue Cub shirts stuck out in the sea of red, but there were definitely other Chicago fans staying at the hotel, too. The boys hung out in the room while R and I ran across the street to the Old Courthouse for a national park passport stamp. Yup, OCD.

The gates to stadium opened at 5:00PM, so we went over early to check it out.  

Go, Cubs!

Our seats were in the upper deck on the left field side. We were under an awning, so even if it had started to rain (it never did), we would have been sheltered. 

It was a pretty good game. The Cubs threw out runners at home, twice. But Strop gave up a homer in the bottom of the 8th to allow the Cards to tie it up. They lost 3-2 in the 10th. The Cubs just squandered too many opportunities, stranding 12 men on base! Grrrr!

This was the fourth Cubs game that the boys have been to (two others at Wrigley Field, and one at Dodger Stadium), and they haven’t witnessed a win yet.

*sigh*

Definitely no bandwagon jumpers in this family. Being a Cub fan builds character and teaches perseverance, right?!