Super St. Louis, Part 5

I left off as we were walking to the game from the Arch.  It was a beautiful day but we were thankful to hear that our seats were under cover and shaded, which actually turned out to be absolutely perfect.  It could have been extra hot out in the sun, but the shade temperature was amazing.  As we approached the stadium, we could see the rooftop patio we saw from the Arch view, and started working our way around the stadium. 

We had a vague idea of where we needed to go to get our tickets, but not exactly!  We were looking for the third base side, but I guess the outfield side felt extra long so I started to second guess myself!  We wandered past closed ticket windows, a bunch of statues, and finally an entrance.  Just outside was a cool Stan Musial statue, which despite our rush I had to get a picture of in case we came out a different way!

We had to ask a couple people but finally found the late-arrival will call tickets.  First priority once we were in was to find a bathroom (!), and as we were doing that, I could hear the seventh inning stretch being announced.  Ugh, we had missed a lot!  Oh, well, we were there and it was cool.  We snapped a pic with the giant (functional) bobblehead before we headed upstairs. 

Our seats were amazing.  With the shade and the great view, I was going to soak it up for as long as we could.  At least the tickets ended up being pretty cheap so weren't wasting too much money by missing most of the game.  I was thankful for the chance to see another stadium.  Comparing MLB stadiums is always fun.

Reunited at last!

Carter and I hadn't eaten lunch yet so Craig got us some food to enjoy as we watched what was left of the game.  I had been running on such adrenaline I hadn't even been hungry until that point.  A pretzel helped!

Once again I played around with the zoom on my camera, and could get this close to the batter!

I caught this shot of the mascot after the big win!

I wish the game could have gone on a little longer, but it was fun while it lasted.  It was such a nice day, and being at a baseball game is always nice.  As we headed out, I wanted to get a shot of the outfield with the Arch in view!

We also caught a glimpse of this cool mural in one of the stadium bars.  Love all the old cards!

They had the American and National League scoreboards from their old stadium in the concourse, just as they stood for the last game before it was replaced.  That was pretty neat!

The atmosphere around the stadium was amazing.  There were outside bars and balconies rimming the stadium that were full of fans, and after the game we saw there was live music at another venue and they had screens to see what was happening in the stadium.  I assume most of these places have screens for fans that don't want to go into the stadium but want to enjoy the atmosphere.  There were high school kids playing in the stadium postgame and people could watch it from there!

We stopped in the store (and then another one across the street) on our way out because we had some gift shopping to do!

I was happy we got to see inside that stadium after driving by it a few times.  By the time we got back to the van and started our trek home, I felt like we had truly conquered St. Louis in a big way.  I mean, if we ever go back there are still things left on our list--the aquarium, a soccer game, and the zoo for starters--but we maximized our time and really did a LOT!  The bad news is we were getting on the road really late which meant that our drive home was going to be a bit more of a challenge, but I think it was worth it!  

We drove a bit into Illinois before stopping for dinner at the first reasonably-sized city.  Then it was a later haul into Indianapolis than we would have liked.  I was bummed that was as far as we got because that left the same long haul home as we had on the 15-hour trip.  And as on that trip, by the time we finally got going in the morning it was later than would have been ideal.  Everyone needed to sleep in a little, then we had to get ready and grab breakfast (just before it closed), and then stop at Starbucks to supplement Jacob's breakfast.  We stopped for lunch somewhere around Columbus, which was not nearly as far along as Jacob and I were on our trip when we stopped for lunch.  We had made it closer to Cleveland.  We split up to each get our preferred lunches across the parking lot from one another, then hopped back in the van and kept going.  We got through the rest of Ohio pretty uneventfully and then ended up in Pennsylvania construction hell.  The road was closed for a stretch and the super slow traffic leading up to that was awful.  When we were finally forced off the highway, we had to take back roads for a while and tried to keep ourselves occupied with a politically-oriented I Spy kind of game, which was funny despite the added annoyance.  We finally made it back to the highway somewhere before the state border and pushed on toward Buffalo.  I had been relegated to the back seat for a good portion of that leg and was feeling a little blah by that point--maybe too much sugar or road food?  Anyway, we stopped at a Mighty Taco in Cheektowaga for a late dinner, and finally made it through the last leg.  We got home far later than would have been ideal for heading back to work and school on Tuesday, but at least we were home with lots of stories to tell.  And at least it was a short week since we all skipped school and work for the extra day, plus Jacob was off Friday (and as it turned out, Thursday due to a doctor appointment and a field day he couldn't participate in anyway), and I took off Friday for my own sanity (more on that in the next post).  Not too shabby heading into a holiday weekend on top of it!  But given how tired we were, we needed it!  But anyway, mission accomplished in St. Louis!