St Louis Here We Come
Not since New York New York have we travelled to an away game as a family so this trip to St. Louis for tomorrow’s game is something I have been long looking forward to.
At the beginning of the season we were lucky enough to have met Steve and Lyn from St. Louis via email. They made a very kind offer for us to come and stay with them the weekend of the Rams game. This happened for a number of the road games that the Packers have played but this weekend, thanks to a number of reasons, was the one that seemed to fit best.
We were up at 5 this morning to prepare for the trip whilst our little ones slept soundly (thank goodness). Our first flight wasn’t set to depart until 935 so we had plenty of time. The morning went without hiccup for the most part and we were at Austin Straubel, in the family play room, well in advance.
Up in the air, on time, we were hoping Luc would take his bottle, hug his bunny and go to sleep. Fat chance of that happening. What he did do was party like it was 1999. In retrospect who could blame him? The last time he flew was a quarter of his life ago so I’m sure the buttons, sounds and proximity of our neighbours was all very exciting.
Ben on the other hand (pictured before the flight of course), boarded the plane like a pro, took his seat, buckled his own belt, pulled out the iPod and asked Kelly what time the drinks lady was coming by. Luc, as Murphy’s Law would have it, really tired himself out on that first flight. So much so that by the time we were landing he was finally making his way to the land of nod.
This time, as luck would have it, he stayed asleep for the entire time we were in Chicago, only waking when the attendant of our St Louis flight started to make her announcements. Thankfully both flights are a mere 45 minutes so whilst he made them interesting, they could have been alot worse.
The weather was pretty crappy in Chicago and it was heading to St Louis with us so we were delayed for about an hour on the tarmac before we left. That was tough. Being in the plane ready for takeoff, with a lap child, but not actually taking off until after you should have already arrived could send someone batty. Thankfully both Kelly and I have quite a high tolerance level. Plus he was being so adorable it was hard not to laugh with him even if he was moving at 100 miles an hour.
When we arrived in St Louis it was white like Green Bay. There was snow everywhere and the biggest flakes we have ever seen were falling right before us. We met up with Steve, who thanks to the wonders of modern technology, was following our flight on the Internet. Despite the snow we made it back to their home in good time. That was after waiting about 3 days for our luggage to come off the carousel but it did in the end so all was good.
On our trip we drove over the Missouri (pictured above) and Mississippi rivers, saw how close to the Illinois border we actually were and got to see a ton of what I like to call “real America” (By “real” I mean not the touristy spots of LA, NY, Vegas or Miami etc.) This, with the snow collecting on bare brown branches was fantastic.
We had a very low key evening thanks to the weather. Steve and Lyn have two little ones aswell so between us we had 3 boys and a girl, all under 3 years of age.
The highlight of the evening was that the snow just kept falling. It was like the first snowfall here in Green Bay and totalled almost 8 inches in the end. It was awesome. Seeing their home, their street and the trees all covered in white was so beautiful. It was throwing our tailgating plans into a real tailspin but for the evening at least I was happy to see it fall.
