Missouri

We already had a small sample of Missouri while exploring Kansas City, but we were both thankful we made the stop in St. Louis. Known for being the state where the river flows, we were pleased to find there were many activities for us here that was a bit unexpected. Our first stop was Ulysses S. Grant’s Home National Historic Site.

We actually had no idea the Grant home was even in St. Louis until we explored Missouri with our National Park Passport. There is a map in the front of this passport that has a map of every National Park, Historic Site, and Monument within the entire United States. We saw this little gem highlighted and decided to pop in.

Guest can tour all around the actual house and the surrounding small buildings. You can explore the chicken coop, the old cellar, the summer kitchen, the outdoor “refrigerator,” or sign up to actually tour the inside of the home. We opted for the self guided tour, which ended in a building with a lot of history from the 1800’s. At the end of the exhibit, visitors can even dress up in clothing from that time period. It was a nice little stop, and stamp on our National Park Passport.

Touring the Grant’s property worked up quite an appetite, so we headed to a local chocolate factory. Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate is a truly amazing factory that meets ever expectations one would gain from growing up watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They offer free tours every half an hour and the samples alone are worth a stop!

The name of the factory is named after the founder Dan Abel. Abel had three children and a major sweet tooth. After starting his dream of making candies, he would bring home a chocolate for each of his three children. Therefore, once he started his own factory the name was birthed by these chocolates for each of his children.

Once given your little health safety hat, you are invited to step into the world of sweets! There are lines and lines of lined candies. It is really everything you would want in a candy factory minus the Oompa Loompas. The workers are really talented and methodical. Watching the candies and what goes into each piece is really incredible.

The tour guide gives you fresh samples right off the conveyor belt, as they tell you the story of Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate. At the end of the tour you can pose with the props and “make your own candies.” There is a store upstairs where you can stalk up on the samples you loved!

After catering to our sweet tooth, we decided to get in touch with our artistic side. We headed to Art Hill, located right outside of one of St. Louis’s art Museum. In the summer this hill is packed with picnics, people enjoying the sun, and even events such as Shakespeare in the Grove (which is an outdoor acting performance).

There are trails around the park, complete with a fountain and pond at the bottom of the hill. We saw a few people running and walking there dogs, but enjoyed a little bit of relaxing time to ourselves. The statues and paths add to the view of this relaxing park area.

Another major highlight is that Budweiser was born in St. Louis. We could not avoid touring this beer town. We headed to the Anheuser- Busch Budweiser Company, and signed up for one of the many tours.

The offer tours for all ages, lengths of time, and depths of exploration, depending on each groups needs. We choose the general brewery tour and were amazed with the beauty of the building. I grew up next to Anheuser-Busch Gardens so I was familiar with the beauty of their park. I was prepared to see a beautiful brewery, but I was still amazed.

The main building was completely decked out for Christmas with garland and trees covering every surface of the huge welcome parlor. We toured the brick architecture and were amazed with the time and details that go into the entire Budweiser franchise. After wandering about, we met our tour guide and began the tour with a cold Bud Light.

Our first stop was the Budweiser Clydesdale’s Stables. INCREDIBLE. These horse literally live in a brick palace. There are chandlers, beautiful arches, and even stained glass. The horses are bathed daily and groomed by many stable hands every day. They are fed quality food which adds to the shine of their groomed coats.

Each horse has it’s own personal leather harness which they wear occasionally when taking the iconic wagons out for a spin. Used for events, special advertisement, and parades these horses have a pretty great life. We decided this is the perfect home for any Clydesdale.

Each of these horses are at the peak of their lives, and we decided this is the big leagues for pampered ponies. From there we headed in to the brewing rooms where they cook the ingredients and actually begin the brewing process. There are many floors of mash tanks and huge containers were various ingredients are added.

After the ingredients are mixed and the liquid are started to resemble beer, the liquid is sent to the maturing room. Here the beer is filtered through special wooden chips to give the liquid a classic Budweiser flavor.

Millions and millions of gallons of beer are stored here and it an overwhelming amount of alcohol. They give you plenty of samples throughout the tour to keep guests from being tempted to tap into these huge kegs. There are special flavors of the intricate beauty of the Budweiser brewery. Including many of the chandlers are made our of hops and golden Budweiser symbols.

We enjoyed all the little details of this brewery that many would argue is America’s beer. There was a special event going on due to the time of year we visited called “Brew Lights.” The whole beer town was decorated with lights for Christmas and even had a huge beer garden tent serving food at the end of the tour. It was a beautiful time of the year to visit.

We could not complete a tour in St. Louis without visiting The Gateway Arch. So naturally, we headed there next! A little known fact is the arch is actually considered a national park. Often refereed to as the Gateway to the West, the arch marks the beginning of the Oregon Trail. This monument was built as a huge reminder of Westward Expansion.

I did not know, but visitors can actually take a tram up to the top. There are two tram lines that run from the South and Northern end of the arch. Visitors can tour in the observation room at the top. Daniel did this when he was a child, and told me it was an experience everyone should do at least once.

We bought our tickets and prepared ourselves for the journey to the top. They load four to five people in these little bubble roller coaster cars, and start trekking up to the top. There are about 8 bubbles linked together that tilt with the wall of the arch and carry visitors up to the top. It is like an elevator roller coaster at a creepy pace. It was quite an adventure to the top and the little window sliver adds to the experience.

Once you finally arrive at the top, guests are encouraged to walk around and explore the various views. Unfortunately, we went on a very foggy and rainy day so the view was not the best. But we still managed to see a good portion of the city and the ride up was alone worth it.

They have little windows placed every couple of feet, on both sides of the arch. The walls are angled outward, so guests are encouraged to lean against the walls and get a great view “laying out” over the city. It is a little spooky getting over how high you are, but the view is really incredible.

At the bottom of the tram ride, there is a neat museum. As you can see from the picture above, there are very interactive exhibits. Going through the history of the westward movement and exploration of Lewis and Clark there is a lot of information. You could spend quite a lot of time down there, with the informative videos and many artifacts.

After experiencing the Gateway Arch we felt like we peaked with our St. Louis experiences. This city ended up being quite a treat with plenty to see and do. Our Missouri experience ended on a good note and with that we headed towards Kentucky. Thanks for reading my post this week.

God Bless, McKayla