City Museum

In a nutshell: The City Museum of St. Louis is AWESOME.


Stacey covered it pretty well here and here. Her accounts are what made us want to visit, and we sure are glad we did.

The above slide was the first and last attraction we enjoyed. In the interim, Connor went on every other slide in the place (except one, he keeps telling me) and even Chloe went down the ten-story spiral slide with her dad (even though she started crying about halfway down). I didn't go on any slides. What can I say- I'm not a slider! (If you look at that picture closely, you can see Connor at the top poised to come down behind his sister.)

I did climb all over MonstroCity, though, even up to one of the planes. Chloe and I then got distracted by a path to a nearby castle, but Connor went all the way to the plane at the top! (He didn't find any Virgin Mary statues up there, though.) I was impressed with how fearless both kids were- I guess heights aren't an issue! At least not yet.

We loved the skateless skate park, where you could pretend you were falling off of your skateboard as many times as you wanted to. You could also slide on all the ramps, half-pipes and concrete bowls. Here, Chloe demonstrates her favorite part of the skate park, the part I assume is responsible for the big scab on her back.

There is pretty much nothing in the museum that is off limits. You can climb up this, slide down that, shimmy into this tunnel, or jump into that ball pit. You just follow your instincts and see whatever you happen to see. We enjoyed the slides, and also the aquarium full of turtles. The kids enjoyed a mini-circus while I had a beer. We crawled through the caverns and set up camp in the tree house. I just can't imagine a cooler place for kids, and parents, to explore.

As we stopped for a snack in the afternoon, Chip was thinking it might be time to leave. Chloe, however, insisted that we stay a bit longer. Her stamina was incredible! Then she fell asleep in the car exactly two blocks from the museum. And as we were leaving, Connor declared, "I want to come back to St. Louis sometime so we can swim some more and go back to City Museum." Only a special place can compete with an indoor hotel pool! And we found it. We will be back, St. Louis. Oh yes, we will be back.

(Slideshow of all the pics is here.)