Visiting our Favorites in St. Louis

It has been awhile since our last posting.  As you may have guessed, we are still in St.Louis.  It has been hot and muggy here- we keep wondering why we are still here and have not headed north to cooler temperatures.  That will happen eventually, for right now we still have doctor visits and friends to see in the St.Louis area.  Our little grandson has also proven to a big reason for sticking around the area.

Nathan is pictured above with his mother Melissa.  At 3 months of age he does a lot of laughing, cooing and is absolutely charmed by ceiling fans, they do not even have to be moving!  We saw him and his parents Sunday in Farmington at a graduation party.

 A favorite park of our is Castlewood State Park in Ballwin Missouri.  We hiked the Lone Wolf Trail along the Meramec River, a trail we have taken many times which goes up over river bluffs and then down along the river.  The trail has steep slopes composed of loose rock, and we found it wise not to get too close to the edge of the bluffs, some of which may suddenly plunge dramatically downward.  Despite it being early afternoon and rather humid there were quite a few other hikers also on the trail.

We just were not ready to head home after our hike and listen to the air conditioning roar in our metal box.  We chose instead to head downtown to take in a game.  It was our first visit to Ballpark Village.  The largest venue in the Village is Cardinal Nation, a two story restaurant and bar which also houses the Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum and Cardinals retail store.  On its roof top deck is seating which offers a view of the ballpark.   The Ballpark Village seems to add another interesting dimension to the whole experience of watching a Cardinal game.  Many fans wearing red were hanging out here and ready to party two hours before the game.  Our home team played the Yankees last night, it was a game which had a lot of action, but unfortunately the Cardinals lost.

Today, Thursday, we biked around Creve Coeur Lake, another favorite St.Louis spot of ours.  The bike path takes us close to the waterfalls pictured above.  According to legend, the lake is named for a tragedy which happened at this site, called  Dripping Springs.  Here a lovelorn Indian maiden died, and it was her broken heart which gave the lake its sad name of "Creve Coeur".