Spring Break in St. Louis
For Spring Break trip 2023, the Troop took 11 scouts and 3 adults to the Gateway to the West, St. Louis, MO. We left Bloomington early Wednesday morning and after a quick stop for lunch, headed to the Saint Louis Zoo, located in historic Forest Park, home to the 1904 World’s Fair. We saw everything from snakes and primates in Historic Hill to lions, camels, zebras, and giraffes in the Red Rocks. Then we headed to The Wild where we saw apes, red pandas, grizzly bears, penguins, puffins, and a polar bear. We saw lots of cool insects and butterflies at the Insectarium in Discover Center. We ended our day watching elephants, hippos, and rhinos at the River’s Edge. Then we headed out to Beaumont Scout Reservation to check in to our awesome cabins (which were heated and even had toilets and showers!) and ended the night with an Oreo Challenge, where blinded folded scouts had to guess the different flavors!
Thursday morning we headed back downtown to spend the day at the “weirdly wonderful” City Museum. Founded by artist Bob Cassilly in the early 90s, the City Museum is a completely upcycled architectural playground located in an abandoned shoe warehouse in the middle of what was once the city’s garment district. Scouts spent the day exploring the many caves, tunnels, and slides and checking out the cool attractions. In the middle of the day, we feasted on authentic St. Louis style pizza at Imo’s, the city’s most popular local pizza chain. Then on our way home from the museum we stopped for frozen custard at Ted Drewes, a St. Louis staple since 1929 and an official tourist stop on historic Route 66.
On Friday, we started the day at the Saint Louis Science Center where the boys enjoyed exploring the eSports Enrichment Center in the Dino Den before we headed to the Planetarium for an interactive star show where we learned about the planets, stars, and constellations of our sky. Then we made a quick pit stop at Hi-Pointe Drive-In for what is universally considered “the best burgers in St. Louis” before heading back downtown to the Gateway Arch National Monument where we explored the museum covering 201 years of history about the westward expansion of the United States, watched an award winning documentary, Monument to a Dream, about the construction of the monument, and then took a 4 minute tram ride to the top of the 630 ft. structure.
Saturday morning we packed up, cleaned the cabin, then loaded back in our vehicles for our ride home. We took a quick pit stop in Casey, Illinois to stretch our legs and check out Big Things Small Town, home to the world's largest wind chime, rocking chair, mailbox, wooden clogs, golf tee, pitchfork, key, gavel, twizzle spoon, golf club, barber shop pole, and teeter totter!
All scouts arrived home Saturday afternoon safe and sound! What a great Spring Break experience!