St. Louis Weekend

This weekend we headed south, across the border and down to sunny St. Louis, Missouri for Elizabeth’s cousin Alex’s wedding to his American fiance… Alex. Although brief, our visit was full of fun times with the family and a spot of top notch tourism.

'Merica.

We both left work a little early on Friday so that we could catch an evening flight down to St. Louis, in time to make it to the rehearsal dinner. After a slight delay while they changed our airplane’s tires (with us on the plane), it was a short hop down to St. Louis, where we were greeted by clear blue skies and 25 degrees Celsius. A welcome escape from the miserable snowy day we were having in Toronto. We were greeted by our chauffeur for the weekend, Dave Dawe, who was kind enough to shuttle us over to the rehearsal dinner at Dressels Pub. A good night was had with food and drink, catching up with family and enjoying the largest presence of Newfoundlanders St. Louis has ever seen.

Rehearsal dinner at Dressels Pub.

Saturday was wedding day, but the ceremony wasn’t until the evening so we got up early to take in some sights. Our first stop was a bus tour with Elizabeth’s parents, Aunt Vicki and Nanny, where our local guide Larry gave us the lowdown on the different neighbourhoods and historic buildings in the city. We hadn’t known what to expect of St. Louis, and were kind of surprised by all of the beautiful red brick houses and carefully restored old buildings. As we neared the end our tour we encountered the masses of baseball fans, out in force in downtown St. Louis to cheer on the Cardinals.

Luke enjoying his ride around town.

We then made our way to the old Laclede’s Landing neighbourhood, which marks the northern part of the original settlement of St. Louis, founded by Pierre Laclede. From there we were able to take a short walk over to St. Louis’s star attraction, the Gateway Arch. The Arch is (and will remain) the tallest structure in the city and serves as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States. It is also apparently the tallest arch in the world, and the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere.

The Gateway Arch, looking splendid in the sun.

Below the Arch is a small museum that usually serves as the access point to trams that take visitors up to the top, but unfortunately they were closed for maintenance. We did, however, get to see a half hour film on the construction of the arch which we really enjoyed (engineers).

For lunch, we tried our luck at Pappy’s BBQ, but the line up was huge. No doubt the smells emanating from the smokers out front were pulling in crowds from miles around. Instead, we went next door for some Southern style deep-fried chicken, where “mild” was anything but. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the nearby St. Louis Cathedral Basilica to admire the impressive mosaics that adorn the entire interior. Over 83 thousand square feet of walls and ceilings are adorned with 41.5 million mosaic tiles, and the effect is truly impressive. It wasn't the only time on our trip that we felt like we were somewhere much more ancient than a midwestern US city, when in fact the cathedrals is only just over 100 years old.

Mosaics inside the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica.

After heading back to the hotel for a quick rest, it was time to suit / dress up for the main event: the wedding of Alex and Alex (aka. Alex Squared). The wedding and reception were hosted at a winery-come-art-gallery in the Central West End neighbourhood of St. Louis, which made for a very pleasant, relaxed atmosphere. The sun was still shining as we arrived, and shortly after we took our seats for the ceremony. It was a short, but really touching and personal ceremony, and we were all so glad to have been able to be there. The rest of the evening was a lot of fun, as the wine started flowing and the food arrived (gourmet pizza and salads), and it wasn’t long until the dance floor got going. A clan of Newfoundlanders do enjoy themselves a good party, and some of them even enjoy eating their cupcakes with a knife and fork….you know who you are…

The cake cutting.

On our final day in St. Louis we were back in the Central West End neighbourhood for a final brunch with the families, which was a great way to say farewell to the people we had met over the course of the weekend. Needless to say there was more than one hungover face there, but the bacon and eggs seemed to do the trick.

From brunch we headed to the nearby Forest Park for a final bit of touristing out in the sunshine. Forest Park is the largest city park in the US, and features an amazing landscape of rolling hills, winding rivers and lakes, and a collection of different museums. At times it was hard to believe we were in the US; looking up at the magnificent art gallery up on a hill we could have been somewhere in Europe looking up at a grand old palace. We had a bit of a drive around the park before stopping for a stroll up to the World’s Fair Pavilion, where we could take in the view from up high.

The Dawe ladies enjoying Forest Park.

And that was it for our trip to St. Louis… or so we thought! Arriving at the airport for our afternoon flight, it turned out we’d been delayed for 4 hours. Not wanting to waste any time waiting in the airport, we headed back to the city and finally got to sample some genuine St. Louis ribs at the BBQ Saloon. They did not disappoint. Thanks for the delay Air Canada!

So, after not really knowing anything about St. Louis beforehand, we ended up having a great weekend, in no small part due to the fun times spent with family and friends.

This time last year we were exploring the area around Eglinton station, and two years ago we were enjoying some east coast music.