Last weekend, Anna and I went to St. Louis.  We went to see the Red Wings play the Blues and also to visit with several friends that live in the area.  We drove to St. Louis on Friday night.  It was an easy drive, a little long (6 hours) but extremely boring!  There is virtually nothing between Indianapolis and St. Louis!

We stayed at the Hampton Inn by the Arch.  I usually don’t give a plug to a hotel, but the staff at this hotel were all very friendly and courteous.  The hotel was nice and clean and for $91/night, it was relatively cheap for a downtown hotel on the weekend.

Saturday morning we had breakfast with Ruthie and newborn Abby.  Ruthie and Michael are friends from college and both of them were in the Chaminade Scholars group with Anna.  Michael was not able to have breakfast with us, but we had a good meal.  I had a Sicilian omelet which was interesting because it was sausage, peppers, onions, provel cheese, and marinara sauce.  I had to try it because I had never seen anything like that for an omelet!  It was good but I would probably order something different the next time though.  Anna got to hold little Abby and I avoided doing so because babies cry when I hold them.

After breakfast, we worked our way through St. Patrick’s day parade traffic towards Scottrade Arena for the Red Wings and Blues game.  We got there early to catch the warm up but had a hiccup with our tickets because they would not scan correctly.  It turned out ok as the arena just put a sticker over the tickets and let us go in anyway, but not after making us wait 15 minutes and making me worry we would miss the warm up, hence the whole reason for us being there early!  But, we did not miss it and got a spot behind the goal along the glass.

The Red Wings won the game 5-2 with an incredible 3 goal burst in 46 seconds in the 2nd period.  Anna missed those three goals and a Blues follow up because the concession line from the 1st intermission was taking too long.  Other than that, it was a good game for the Wings and I thought Ozzie played well.  It was also nice to get a good look at Jonathan Ericsson as I believe he will have earned a roster spot through this year’s playoffs and for next year’s team.

You can view more pictures of the game here

On a related note, I went into the game expecting to be harassed very badly because St Louis HATES the Red Wings, and understandably so.  But it was actually pretty tame and all of the people we talked to were very friendly.  I will say that they were more friendly than Columbus, which is really starting to earn a black spot in my heart with the way they treat Wings fans that also cheer for their team when the Wings are not in town.

After the game, we visited with Kathy.  Kathy and I used to work together when we lived in Florida.  She and her husband Nick just had a baby named Gabriel, but Nick is currently deployed over seas, so we did not get to see him.  Gabriel is a good kid, I only heard him cry once when he was hungry.  He thought my Wings jersey was a toy and decided to hold onto the sleeve for nearly an hour while we ate dinner.  Kathy also showed us her parents home and it was incredible!  Her dad is building his own airplane so he showed me the fuselage, cockpit, engine, and how to build the frame out of fiberglass.  He also recently finished their home theater in the basement and it was equally impressive.  I would say the screen is 5-6 feet and the projector seemed to be high quality.  The sound system was great, too.

On Sunday morning, we walked to the Arch and took the ride to the top.  The Arch symbolizes St. Louis as the gateway to the West.  To ride to the top, you sit 5 people in these little capsules and the capsules are all connected to the train that goes up through the internal structure.  The doors of the capsule have windows so you can see the stairs and internal framework as you go up.  Once you are at the top, you emerge to a very crowded passageway with small windows.  The point of view does not change very much from window to window so I only took a few pictures.  Still, it was neat to go to the top of the Arch and look down at the city.

You can view more pictures of the Arch here

We left St. Louis after that and drove back home.  We stopped along the way to see Greg and Kareema, two friends that recently married last year.  Greg and I were roommates in college so it was nice to see that he and Kareema and doing well.  When we returned home, Anna’s sister, Katie, was waiting for us because she is on vacation for a week.  We also watched the Red Wings and Blue Jackets game in which the Wings trounced the Jackets as retribution for that horrible 8-2 loss last week.