Three Kids and a Dog: A Little Vacation During the Pandemic

We've gone to only our house in Michigan and back pretty much since the pandemic started. The only time we've left the state and not gone to Michigan has been if Austen had out of state soccer games and they had one scheduled for St. Louis in November. Besides me, no one in our family had ever been to St. Louis so I thought it could be an opportunity for our whole family to go watch Austen play and do a little sight seeing. I booked a hotel that promised the rooms were sealed and sanitized, and then looked into what other things we could do for the girls while we were there.

African Painted Dogs in Back

I discovered an endangered wolf habitat not far from where we were staying and knew that Peyton and Hailey would love that so I booked it. The next day we found out Austen's games were canceled because they couldn't find enough refs due to a lot of girls games being played that weekend in the area. Still we made the decision to go for one night (not our original two). Peyton and Hailey would've been so disappointed as they were looking forward to a brief getaway and they had the Friday before off school too.

We headed out early Friday morning after dropping Sadie off at her boarding facility for the 4.5 hour trek. The ride was quick and we didn't need to stop til we were close to our first stop. We ended up at having lunch outside at this place called First Watch Cafe. Super casual and cute. Then we headed to our 90-minute wolf predatour! We had to wear masks the whole time even though we were outside and there was only one other family on the tour (and at the whole conservation it seemed). We saw African Painted dogs, arctic foxes and many different kind of wolves like the red wolves, maned wolves (that smell like skunk) and black wolves. In fact, there was a whole pack ripping apart a dead deer which I didn't love seeing but everyone else in my family did. After we visited the gift shop, we headed to our hotel to check in briefly then head to dinner.

I have some friends who are from St. Louis so they recommended a bunch of restaurants to eat. One of them was in the historic downtown of St. Charles which was really cute. We ate outside at Salt and Smoke with huge fire pits and great barbecue! The weather also happened to be unseasonably warm that weekend stretching into the 70s so it was a perfect weekend to be outside.

The next morning, we found a cute donut shop and then we had tickets to go up in the Arch so we walked around the park below and then through the museum inside and then up into the Arch where we could look out from above and over the Mississippi River and on one side and into downtown St. Louis on the other. Again, all was very controlled and there weren't a lot of people so it was easy to keep your distance from others. The Arch did a good job of spraying everything down and offering lots of hand sanitizer.

Afterwards, we walked around St. Louis and Busch Stadium for a bit. The stadium and the area surrounding it is amazing. I remember attending a game at the old Busch Stadium more than 20 years ago and this looked a lot cooler than that one! We then hopped in the car to watch our niece's soccer game (as she happened to also be playing that weekend in St. Louis but she got refs!). That was Austen's highlight of the whole trip - watching his cousin play soccer!

After the game, we hopped back in the car for an early dinner at another recommended place, Katie's Pizza and Pasta. We laughed so hard at that place because I took the girls to the bathroom and while we were in the stall we realized we were in the men's bathroom as a man came in and started peeing in the urinal. Peyton who tried to warn me prior was all, "I told you mom!" and was mortified while I just shushed them to be quiet and get done so we could get the heck out of there! Made for some good laughs back at the table though! When dinner was over, we headed back home. It was a short trip but per usual we managed to cram in a lot in a short period. I think we were all just glad to get out and do something that was not at either of our houses - albeit as safely as we could!