St. Louis

We did end up going to St. Louis last weekend. I had never been there and Ben remembered as we were pulling in that he had been there before. They had a focus group for work there one day. So he had seen the airport and one conference center room out by the airport. We didn't quite know what to expect but we really had a good time. First of course we went to the temple since that was the reason for the trip.
I really liked this temple, especially all of the ceilings. It was really fun to go see another new temple. We had a good time and then went to see this new city. We wanted to try to get an authentic experience so we found a barbecue pit for some smoked meat. We found a great place called Bandanna where we tried boiled peanuts. We had never heard of this so we didn't know that we needed them in our lives. They are whole shelled peanuts boiled in brine and come out with a consistency similar to edimame. Ben wants to make them at home now. I will admit that they weren't half bad. They were a bit salty for me, but I hate salt to this is to be expected. Deanna you would love them. I thought that this might be true Missouri style but I called my step-mom, who is from Missouri and she had never heard of them so... they are not so much a Missouri original.
Then we went first to the only thing every person we talked to told us we had to see, the arch of course. It is quite large. you get under it and it just goes straight up
It's crazy, you get into this egg shaped pod looking thing that looks like it might shoot out into space.
Next to me is another chair for another person, Ben can't sit up all the way, my head touched the top, this thing is the tiniest space I have ever been in, especially with 4 other people. The egg shape has a purpose though, you start to go up like an elevator and then as you start to go around the curve you start to tip, then suddenly the whole pod rocks and you are straight again. This happens a few times as you go up. It takes about 4 minutes to get to the top. You go up over 600 feet. I was wondering how my husband was going to handle the top. He doesn't like to be in really high places and he especially doesn't like it if he can see the ground. 100+ floors up in the Sears Tower he is fine because he can't see where he would fall. In the arch though you have to lean over and almost lay on the wall to see out the window. You can see straight down to the base of the arch.

This is proof that Ben was up there

You can see over to Illinois

And all the way across St. Louis
We also went to get custard because a: I love custard b: we had heard wonderful things about this particular custard. We got to the custard place, Ted Drew's, and it was CLOSED until March!! So we are going to have to go back again when it is warm. Luckily, down the street from the great custard was a donut shop that was featured on the show Good Eats as being one of the top ten donut shops in the U.S. This didn't mean much for me of course but Ben got one. He's not a donut connoisseur by any means but he said it was good.
We had a good weekend and we will be going back at some point. There is a cathedral we want to see as well as the history museum and the park that is bigger than central park. After a long fun day we said goodbye and drove off into the sunset