St. Louis!!

Well...we made it back A-OK and had an AWESOME time on our trip to the Midwest:)  St. Louis was such a pretty little city!  It would have been a PERFECT walking town, but alas, our NJ-selves couldn't handle much of the 109 degree heat and 72% humidity!  WOOOSH:) hahahahhaha....so we took our tour on wheels and enjoyed every minute;)

And as soon as we set foot in St. Louis, we knew where we were headed;)

That's right...we headed straight from the airport to the famous Ted Drewes Frozen Custard!  hahahahhahahha... Ted Drewes is known for their creamy custard and frozen "concrete" blended desserts....and we started off our trip on the right foot with a caramel apple pie "concrete" (me) and a brownie "concrete" (Scott).  Not a bad way to start our trip, I must say:) hahahhahah....

The next morning we were up bright and early to hit the road and check out all of the sites!!  And how else could we start our trip but on a journey UPWARD....

The St. Louis arch is QUITE a sight to see!  It's so huge and perfectly streamlined, it almost doesn't seem real!  We caught a glimpse of it on our drive back from Ted Drewes and it was almost foreboding at night time!  But during the day, it was just a glorious sight to see!!

We rode the TEENY TINY capsules up to the top.....thankfully, it only took FOUR minutes and we ended up meeting nice people on our journey up AND down to distract me from the moderate claustrophobia;) hahahahahaha....

And I don't know WHY...but I was "shocked" to find the elevator AND "viewer landing" we're actually ARCHED!  I just thought it would illiousionally level out for some reason;)  But no, there was NO doubt where you were when you reached the top;) hahahahahahhaa....

But the view made up for it!  You looked out these little windows to glorious views of both downtown St. Louis & the Mississippi...it was pretty breathtaking!  Especially seeing the Arch SHADOW casting down on the ground! ;)

And after all that fun & claustrophobia...as soon as we were back on the ground, we were off to our second culinary adventure!!!!

Scott had read reviews of Pappy's Smokehouse before we arrived and warned me that the crowds start lining up before Pappy's opens: AT 11AM!!!!  But I figured "hey, it's a weekday afternoon, how bad could it be???"

He'll be oh-so-happy that I state this publicly, but:  SCOTT WAS RIGHT! :)

We rolled up around 11:20 and joined the SMALL line in front of us (and watched the line grow & grow behind us!)

And unbeknownst to us, once you were inside, you were lead down a hallway where the line WRAPPED around inside!  That sneaky little Pappy!!! :)

We were finally led out of the truly hot as hell hallway and into the COOOOOOOOL dining room with the funky little Rock & Roll vibe!  (although, I guess, what else would you expect???  This wasn't a "Mozart" kinda place;)

And once "inside"...we stood in yet ANOTHER line;)  They advised you not to 'save a seat'...mainly because, by the time you make it up to the front of the blessed line...more than likely everyone before you will be done eating;)  And it was true! :) hahahahhahaha....

Pappy's stays open until the sell out of meat (usually around 4 o'clock!)  This place is NO Joke;)

But at least we had plenty of time to pick our poison:)   hahahahahaha....I had planned the whole time on getting the 'Frito Pie'...but on further inspection of the menu....(and the 50 minutes of contemplating whilst waiting;)

...I went with Scott's choice, and chose the eloquently named "Heifers & Hogs" Platter:) 

Which was a combo of pulled pork and beef brisket, that you got to smother in the sauce of your choice.  Oh my word....the pork, in particular, was OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD!  So tender it 'pulled' right off with your fork....KILLER!  And I am not a fan of ANY 'raw bread' (aka: Non-toast), yet I gobbled that white bread up like they were gonna take it away from me!  Mixed with the sauce and meat = heaven! ;) 

And the sauce, oh the sauce, just DIVINE!!!!  We had originally picked up a bottle of the original sauce to take home, but I had to make a last minute switch for the "Sweet Baby Jane" sauce because it was just PERFECTLY sweet & smoky!!!  (and it was actually exchanged by Mr. Pappy himself!  Very nice fella!)

And I rounded out my meal with some sweet potato fries and 2 bites of the 'fried corn on the cob'...the corn was ok, but the fries were just yummy!

After polishing off our meal, we got to walk back through the even LONGER line that had formed during our chow session.  And when you are outside: you are in the DIRECT sun!  You gotta WORK to get these eats...but they were WORTH every minute! ;)

And SINCE it was (TRULY) 109 degrees outside...we thought we'd take our next activity INDOORS to the:

This REALLY couldn't have been a nicer tour, capped off by the fact that it was FREE!!!!!!!  The only 'bad' part was that it was partiailly outside....on a cool day, it would have been just lovely...but in the dead heat of August....phewwww...warm;)  Thankfully, the grounds of the brewery were just GORGEOUS!  Who knew a brewery could be so pretty!

Our first stop was to see the famous Budweiser clydsdales! :)

...and thier terribly elaborate stables!  How beatuiful is this place??

Next we headed to our first "temputerature change" room....to the 50 degree 'fermenting room'...oh, it was GLORIOUSLY FREEZING in there! :)

...Buttttt...it was swiftly followed by the OTHER 'temputerature change'....which was "20 degrees hotter than outside" (do the math on THAT one!)  Fortunaly they told us what to look out for BEFORE we headed in...including this GORGEOUS chandalier from the World's Fair with vines to look like the 'hops' that are added to beer.  Really pretty, yet stifflingly hot;)

We got to check out a few more buildings and then we were hearded back to the main building by way of the Budweiser trolley;)  Air conditioned, thankfully:)

And along with our free tour, we even got FREE SAMPLES! :)

I tasted both Scott's pale ale and wheat beer, but truth be told, I'm not much of a beer drinker...but I'm sure it was lovely, if you like such a thing;)

Sooooooo...we headed back for more of what I DID like!  Ted Drewes!

The 'gimick' at Ted Drewes is that they serve you the custard upside down...but on a 109 day, our "concrete" only lasted a few minutes!  We took this picture as we SWIFTLY headed to the car!! ;)

Where we enjoyed our concretes in the air conditioned bliss!  The time I got EXACTLY the one I had wanted to try:  Vanilla custard blended with Oatmeal Cookies pieces.  Oatmeal Cookies are FAR too underraated, as the CRUNCH of the spicy cookie was perfect against the cool, sweet cream.  Just delicious! :)

Andddddddd....we had to make one more stop to pick up some "souveniers" .....

As soon as I heard that St. Louis was famous for something called "BUTTER CAKE,"  I KNEW I had to research to find out who made the best...and my google search led us to "Gooey Louie!" 

We talked at lengths to the lively owner, Kirk, who told us he will be appearing on the new Food Channel soon!  And we also snatched up almost the remainder of his stock for the day (he was almost sold out!)....

And upon our final tasting, we dubbed the "Driving me Nuts" cake the BEST!  All of the cakes tasted like SUPER sweet butter/cheesecake hybrids (could that even BE bad???), but the "Drivin me Nuts" swirled in kettle glazed pecans & walnuts making it OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!

And after that, we were DONE eating for the day;)  So off we headed to Forest Park to take in the sights and the World's Fair Pavilion...

Drove around and found some gorgeous colonial style homes....

And down to Laclede's Landing along the Mississippi, where we turned the corner and found Lewis & Clark wading in the water.  Seriously, how scary is this:

But it was a good way to end a GREAT day with Great food AND Great Sites!! :)

And after seeing all that, now you'll know why we had THIS for dinner last night:

I kid, of course, as I do DIG a good Grilled Vegetable salad:) hahahahahhahaha...esp. since I have MORE meat to tell you about;)  I'll post our Kansas City adventures tomorrow!  Stay tuned;)