KatelynWhere We Stayed: Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch
Trip Highlights:
- Lots of BBQ
- Going Up in The Arch
- The City Museum
- The Lincoln Tomb
Favorite Restaurants:
Our only non-Philadelphia road trip in 2020 was to St. Louis, Missouri. We were able to book a hotel just next to The Arch and find a few ways to safely explore the city during the pandemic.
On our first day we started the day at the St. Louis Science Center. It was a pretty straightforward science museum, with exhibits on dinosaurs, robotics/video games, transportation and more. The Science Center is attached to a planetarium, so they had a pretty large collection of exhibits about space travel as well which we enjoyed quite a bit!
The St. Louis Science Center is just across the street from Forest Park, the largest park in St. Louis. It was a beautiful fall day, so we went for a walk and did a little geocaching in the park. We also found probably the cutest Starbucks I’ve ever seen. Even the inside of the Starbucks looked like a little rustic cabin!
Our hotel was located right next to The Arch, so on our way back to the hotel we stopped by the outdoor area outside of The Arch to wander around and take a few photos. We also stopped by a nearby sculpture park to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and check out the artwork.
Dinner both nights of our trip was, of course, bar-be-que! Our first night we picked up a selection of three meats from Salt and Smoke, which included brisket, pulled pork, and ribs. Everything was delicious! We also drove over to Ted Drewes to try their famous custard for dessert.
Our second morning brought us into the main tourist attraction in St. Louis: The Gateway Arch. We had booked tickets ahead of time to take us to the top of the arch to check out the views of both downtown St. Louis on one side and Illinois on the other. At the base of the Arch is a small museum about the Lewis and Clark and the Louisiana Purchase, as well as the Native Americans that had inhabited the area.
Our other big stop of the day was probably the most unique and interesting thing we did during our time in St. Louis. The City Museum is a series of rooms and outdoor areas entirely constructed from found objects from St. Louis. There are hidden passageways, a ten story slide, a waterfall, multiple bridges, tunnels to crawl through, and even a series of caves. Some of the more enclosed areas were closed due to COVID, but plenty of the open areas and outdoor areas of the museum were available for exploring.
This place is nothing like at typical museum – it’s almost more of an art exhibit. They even had a ferris wheel and slides that adults could fit down, so we took a turn on two of the slides. If we ever end up back in St. Louis we’d love to stop by this place during a non-COVID time when everything is open and we’d feel more comfortable exploring some of the more enclosed areas. But it was still an incredible stop on our trip.
We ended our last day in St. Louis with more bar-be-que, this time from Sugarfire Smokehouse. I wish I had a photo of these ribs, because they were hands-down the best ribs I have had (though they may now be topped by the ribs from City Barbeque in Louisville).
On our drive home from St. Louis we stopped in Springfield, Illinois to visit Lincoln’s Tomb. After getting our temperature checked and signing in, a guide brought us and another family to the front of the tomb, told us some information about its construction and changes that have occurred to the site over the past hundred years, and then allowed us to enter the tomb.
Inside was a circular path with miniature diagrams of several key statues of Lincoln throughout the United States. Halfway around the circle we met Lincoln’s headstone, and those of Mary Todd and two of his sons (One son is buried in Arlington National Cemetery) in the main room.
It was a quick pit stop, but an interesting end to our weekend road trip.
