Weekend in St Louis - day one!

  I think I left you with me waiting in the hotel room for Pat to arrive...well she did and earlier than I expected and off we went to Forest Park.   We were able to get a shuttle right to the airport metro station which was great.  We got off at the Forest Park stop and past the History museum which sadly I never did get to see.  We walked over to the Grand Basin which was spectacular...

This is the art museum that overlooks the basin - we didn't darken it's doorstep.  Too nice a day to be inside!

This was all very impressive but next on the list was the zoo.  Finding the zoo was a bit of a pain - we kept getting different directions but we finally found it.  That park needs some signs - seriously..I have never been in a park with so few signs.

The St Louis Zoo was free and funded by donations.  It was a great zoo with a lot of different animals with huge enclosures as well as clean and well kept.  We won't talk about the cost of food there - we shared my energy bar and I drank out of the water fountain.  Three dollars for a bottle of water, I don't think so!!!

Here are some of the critters we saw.......

As we all know I adore meerkats - have loved them way before they were 'disneyfied".  Unfortunately I did not get many good shots this time around despite having a zoom lens....

The zoo had a wonderful penguin area.  This shot was taken at the outdoor pool whereas there was a colder area indoors.  This is where I saw my first display of penguin porn - shocking!!!

The closest I have ever been to a puffin - they are so darn cute. 

A red panda - I swear we turned into red panda stalkers. (and penguin and puffin stalkers too!)

They have a new area called Sea Lion Sound which was just built this year and it's awesome.  You walk under the tank so that seals and sea lions are swimming over you.  Really a cool experience and freaky at times as it looks like they are going to come flying through the glass at you!!!  Could have spent hours there!
Difficult to take photos though so there aren't any.  If you are in St Louis I would definitely recommend a trip to Forest Park and the zoo. 

After the zoo we finally found our way back to the metro station.  That is one huge park!!!!

By this time poor Pat was starving as she had been up since about 3:00 a.m.   I had wanted to do a Bath and Body Works run and knew it was at the Galleria Mall from my last trip to St Louis in 08.  So off we went and had supper at Five Guys burgers.  I had never been there before and we were both in ecstasy over their hamburgers.  Wow!!!  I think we were both so hungry they tasted twice as good as usual.   After I got a couple of bottles of what I wanted (I wanted more but my poor suitcase could only hold so much!) we were off back to the airport.   The metro is very slick and we used it a lot - got day passes for $7.50 which was good value as the trip to the airport was $4.00.  We had to go to the airport terminal to be picked up by the shuttle - they would not pick us up at the metro station but that was okay.   A very full first day in St Louis!!!