Spending the day in St. Louis

Our last day on our trip....it's Wednesday and tomorrow we have to head back home to our exciting life.  But.....there's no time to waste -- we have a town to see.

We checked out of our hotel and headed to our first destination......The St. Louis Arch and the Old Courthouse.  Since I had taken a picture of the brewery the previous night, I needed one in the daytime. 

Not bad for being taken out of a car window riding down the freeway!

We made it downtown and I snapped some pictures of the inside of the Courthouse while Paul bought our tickets to the Arch.  The 4th of July decorations were still up and it made the rotunda area an amazing place to see.

 We made our way over towards the Arch and finally got inside our little pod for the ride to the top.  Only 6 people could fit inside each little pod and we got some of our fellow passengers to snap a picture of us on the way to the top.

 

This is what the little pods looked like

 

 

Once we made it to the top, it took a little while to not feel a little dizzy.  The whole floor was angled and the windows were narrow......but the sights were AMAZING!

 Annheuser-Busch field where the Cardinals play.....on the Missouri side of the Arch

 Looking out the Illinois side of the Arch

 And here's a picture of the casino hotel we had stayed our first night at

 (where we had amazing views of the Arch)

 

 Here's the Old Courthouse from the top of the Arch

 A geyser going off on the Illinois side

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at getting a selfie from inside the Arch.....we got a nice US government employee who offered to do it for us. 

Yes......it's been a spectacular day so far, but there is still so much time left................

Headed to Paducah

The nice thing about taking a trip with no schedule, is you have no schedule.  We slept a little longer this morning, but it was nice to sleep in a little without the stress of having to hurry somewhere.

We took a quick tour of Music Row in Nashville before we left, which mainly consists of several, several small record company offices.  Then we headed back on the highway towards St. Louis.

Lunch was planned to take place in Paducah, Kentucky......since there was a Civil War Museum that we wanted to visit while we were there.

So 2 hours later we pulled into Paducah and had no idea of what we would see while we were there.  What we discovered was these beautiful painted wall murals that provided the flood walls for the city.  Amazing.  Pictures cannot capture how wonderful these were.  You will see from the pictures below:

 One of the streets near the River. 

 Two rivers join together here in Paducah:  the Tennessee and the Ohio Rivers.

 We found a BBQ place to eat our lunch here and later we indulged at an ice cream shop on this street.....it was an incredibly hot day!

 A cobblestone street runs along the sea wall.  I LOVE places like this!

 The other side of the seawall.......where the two rivers meet

 Some of the beautiful murals

After hanging out by the murals for awhile and snapping pictures.....we headed to the Civil War Museum.  It was located in an old house from one of the founding members of the city.  We were the only people there and we had a personal tour and learned so much history about the importance of Paducah during the Civil War.  We spent such an enjoyable 2 hours there.

 Here's the museum from the outside

 

We got back in the car around 4pm and headed west for our 2 hour drive back to St. Louis.

 

We totally enjoyed our quiet time together with just the two of us.  Of course, most of the conversation revolved around PZ......but of course, PZ is what makes it possible for us to have all this fun.

 

We arrived in St. Louis around 6pm and headed to the casino hotel that we had rented for the night. 

This one was also located right on the Mississippi River....and offered a beautiful view!

We gambled for a short while, but decided we didn't want to eat there and we really didn't like the gambling there.....so we jumped in the car for another casino destination.  We stopped for gas and I got a shot of my favorite brewery:

After a couple of hours of eating and gambling and having a great time......we headed back to our room and called it a night.  Tomorrow would be our only all day sightseeing day in St. Louis and we wanted to get an early start.

Getting to know Andrew Jackson

Time to document the rest of our St. Louis/Nashville trip.  Today was the only full day we had to be here, and there was lots to see.

We headed of to see and learn about Andrew Jackson and his home......The Hermitage.

 We love to tour historical old homes.  This one is even more special because all the furnishings and items in the home were original to the Jackson family.  Lots of really cool old stuff.

Andrew Jackson and his wife were buried here

These were some of the slave cabins.  This was a big working plantation at one time

 Having fun as we were leaving The Hermitage.  (he was trying to look presidential....looks angry)

Well now that we completed our tour of The Hermitage, it was time to grab some lunch

Pizza it is!  We really do enjoy visiting other pizza shops and seeing how other people do it.  This pizza looked good and was pretty yummy!

The next stop on the Gainor whirlwind Nashville Tour was going to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

We weren't really sure how familiar we would be with most of it, but we ended up having a great time and was familiar with a big majority of the singers and musicians featured in there.  Seriously, couldn't go to Nashville without visiting this museum.

 I spotted one of these party wagons while walking to the museum.  They have a bartender on board and everyone sits around the bar and pedals to make it move.  They were really popular driving up and down the main street of Nashville.

Not everyday that you can get your picture taken with a GIANT guitar

 

 Not everyday you get your picture taken INSIDE a giant guitar!

 A view of Nashville from the museum window

 

We finished the museum and decided to head down the main street (Broadway) to get a cold beer before we headed back to the hotel to get a short nap and ready for our evening.

 

 And here's what it looks like at night......quite a different scene

At 1am we finally called it a night and called for a Uber to come and get us.  Funny story, we get pulled over by the police on the way back to the hotel.  Our driver had a tail light out that he didn't know about.  Oh well, added a little more excitement to a fun day!

Rolling on down the highway

Headed out of our hotel around 9am and headed down the highway.  Two minutes later we were in Illinois.....wow, that didn't take long.

First stop was for coffee.....Paul hadn't had his first cup yet and that was a necessity.  We drove for about 5 miles and found the St. Louis Bread Company (looked just like Panera).  I decided to grab a little something to eat before we started on the long drive and they had a Cinnamon Crunch Bagel that looked interesting.  We got it toasted with cream cheese and OMG>>> the best bagel I ever had and Paul agreed with that assessment as well.

Our first stop along the way to Nashville was going to be in Metropolis, Illinois.  A tiny little town in Illinois that had something interesting that made it worth stopping there.

A couple of hours later (after a pit stop in a small town to pick up some beef jerkey and use the facilities).....we were there to see it in person!

 We got lucky......there wasn't anyone around it when we got there....

so we had all the photo opportunities we wanted!

 So we spent some time taking tacky tourist photos

 And we had a good time doing it too!

 I didn't need to call Superman.....I was already married to my Super Man!

 We visited the gift shop and picked up a souvenir shot glass for one lucky recipient, although we didn't want to take the time to go through the museum.  Guess you need to be a die hard Superman fan to enjoy the museum.

 It was time to say goodbye to Superman and Metropolis and head on down the highway once again.

 It was a gorgeous sunny (and hot day) with lots of beautiful scenery to enjoy

 I was going to try and take a picture of each Welcome to XXXXX state sign we passed, but it was difficult and sadly this one is the only one I got.  We were in Kentucky!

We stopped for a Mexican food lunch in Clarksville, Tennessee and then wanted to hit the highway again for the final destination to Nashville.  While we were eating lunch, we were on our cell phones looking for a place to stay.  We wanted to be within walking distance of all the music in downtown Nashville.

We found a downtown hotel for the two nights we were going to be there, but unfortunately it was just a little too far for walking.  That's okay.....the hotel had a free shuttle that would take you where you needed to go.  First thing for us before we hit Broadway Street was to take a nap.

 The nice thing about Nashville is there is TONS of places with live music that begins at noon and doesn't end until 2am.  We hung out in a couple of places for a little bit and then found this place.

 The band was awesome!  We stayed here until they were done (which wasn't long enough for us)

 Once they finished, we needed to find some dinner and some place to listen to music while we ate.  And it had to be someplace that wasn't playing country music

 I tried to get this guy to go and eat with us, but he said he was "all shook up" and couldn't make it.  We found a bar that had two levels, so we sat and ate a quick bite and listened to........country music (lol).

It was about midnight and we'd had a long day......time to catch an Uber and head back to the hotel.  Tomorrow was going to be our only whole day to do some sightseeing and we wanted to get a fairly early start.

But so far, our Nashville trip was fun!