Over the course of the hour long tour, we were given a lot of great information about the river's history and its importance on building the city to become what it is today. It was a great tour indeed and you couldn't beat the price of it either. I highly recommend this if you are heading to St. Louis and want a great way to see various sights all while getting to sit back and relax a bit.
One of the absolute best parts about traveling to various race-cations this year is having the opportunity to check out new cities. Most of the time, I am only in the city for a day or so which means I have to make the most of my time. In the case of St. Louis, I was there for all of about 27 hours which included the time to sleep and run the half marathon, so time was limited to see the best of St. Louis. After making my way around the expo, I headed out to do some exploring around St. Louis before getting ready for tomorrow's race. My first stop of the day was at the Old Courthouse. Here you can buy tickets for "Journey to the Top" (go to the top of the Gateway Arch) which I already did online earlier this week. Also inside of the Old Courthouse is a wide variety of exhibits highlighting the history of Dred and Harriet Scott's fight for freedom and the expansion out West. I really wish that I had some more time to been able to explore more throughout the Old Courthouse, but lunch was calling my name as well as some reservations that I had. I had lunch at a cafe and dined along the Mississippi River while watching the barges going by. It was one of the absolutely most relaxing and enjoyable lunches that I have had. I could seriously just sit there and watch the river all day. Next I took an hour long river cruise down the Mississippi River which was the best $20 spent! As we boarded the Becky Thatcher river boat, you could either choose to sit inside on the first two levels of the boat or you could sit on the open-top upper deck. It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day in St. Louis, so I went to the top level so I could fully take in the sights and sounds (and of course, sun). Over the course of the hour long tour, we were given a lot of great information about the river's history and its importance on building the city to become what it is today. It was a great tour indeed and you couldn't beat the price of it either. I highly recommend this if you are heading to St. Louis and want a great way to see various sights all while getting to sit back and relax a bit. You can't be in St. Louis and not do the MOST touristy thing there is to do, right? In case you don't know what that is, I went to the top of the Gateway Arch. This was a pretty wild experience to say the least. After going through a mini "tour" where you are given background info about the Gateway Arch and the tram system, you are then loaded into "pods" with 5 people per pod. Since I was a single rider, I was loaded with a group of 4 strangers, but when you are sitting this closely for several minutes, you don't stay strangers for long. The ride in the pod kind of felt like a Ferris wheel ride - you felt a tiny bit of swaying but nothing much at all. After about a four minute journey, we made it to the top. At 630 feet high, you could see so much of the city, Mississippi River, and much more. The corridor wasn't very big, but people were super polite taking their turn to look/take pictures and moving so the next people could look. Overall, I spent about 3 hours or so in the Gateway Arch area between lunch, the riverboat tour, and the Journey to the Top. It was definitely a wonderful and quite relaxing afternoon. My final stop of the day was visiting Busch Stadium. The Cardinals didn't make it to the playoffs, so there were no games happening, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't fun to be had. The stadium itself is something that I definitely wanted to see while I was here. Around the stadium is "Ballpark Village" which is a variety of different dining options, shops, and entertainment places. There were a lot of folks watching college football on the restaurant patios which I would have loved to have enjoyed myself, but I had my heart on some pizza. I headed on back to grab some pizza at IMO's which was connected to my hotel. After eating dinner, it was safe to say that I was close to being done. I headed back to my room for a bit to rest for a bit and get my race stuff laid out. Don't worry though, I did take advantage of the rooftop bar at the hotel and went up there for a few minutes to check out what St. Louis looks like at night. After that though, I was in bed and getting set for a 13.1 mile tour by foot tomorrow.
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BrandiI love to run and most importantly I love to have FUN while I run....I am the "Funner Runner" Feedspot's Top 100 Running Blogs
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