Trip to St. Louis 2014, Day 4, Part Two

After a full morning at the City Museum, we went out to our car for a picnic lunch.  It was a bit expensive to get into the museum ($12 per person, but well worth it for a whole day of fun!), and you could come and go if you wanted.  It does cost to park in their parking lot, which is not very big.  After lunch, we headed back inside for more fun.  To get to the outside part of the museum, you must enter from the inside.  It is called MonstroCity and is a wonderful playground of climbing structures and slides going from the ground to about 5 stories high.  However, it is not a place for those afraid of heights! 

A view from up high.

Let's go up.

Catherine wore out the knees of her pants in just this one day!

Catherine and Dom way up there.

See that climbing tube at the top?

Yep, there are the two daredevils.  I did not climb up in those things!

Joseph on a slide hanging out over the parking lot.

Look at that crazy kid up there!

It's Dominic.

This was the highest up slide outside.

Joseph ready to slide.

The first time I walked across this walkway, I was a bit shaky in the knees.

After a long time, we went back inside for a break.  Then it started to rain outside, so we felt lucky that we had been out there while we still could.  When you arrive at the museum, if you ask for a map of the place, you will not get one.  They want you to just explore and find things.  We had heard about this 10 story slide inside the building and decided to find it.   On that first floor with the crazy climbing, sliding areas, there was this whole area tucked into one side called the Enchanted Caves that we had missed the first time.  Going in there really felt like going into a natural cave.  Back in there was the entrance to a 5 story and a 10 story slide.  Joseph was not old enough to go by himself, so I got the job of going with him, along with Catherine and Dominic.  Climbing up to the top of even the 5 story slide was safe, but rather scary.  It was spiral stairs going up and you could look over the edge down to the bottom if you wanted.  Talk about a major workout, too!

Waiting to go down one of the slides.   The woman sitting there was watching a monitor of the bottom of the slide and she would tell you when you could go down.

Ready for a 10 story spiral slide?  It seemed never ending.

Back in the caves, there was a man playing a big pipe organ.  Really cool to hear while you were trying to climb 10 stories high.

Back in the main area of the first floor, the kids got to play some more.  

Anne next to some of the colorful mosaics, which also covered the floor.

This was a pathway leading somewhere.  I don't think I could fit in there!

One of the holes in the ground leading somewhere...

Hi, Anthony, up there!

Anne went down that hole and popped up on the other side of the room from underneath the big whale.

Catherine looking out from the other side of a big fish tank.

What a wonderful day!  And talk about some tired kids! The kids loved it and keep asking when we can go back.  On the second floor of the museum were a shoelace factory and an aquarium, neither of which we had time for.  I'm sure there were other places in the building we did not explore, so maybe someday we can go there again.  It sounds like they will continue to add to the museum, in fact, we saw some construction of towers going on outside while we were there. 

The next day we packed up and made our way back home.  What a good visit with Sr. Mary Elizabeth, along with some fun St. Louis activities!

Trip to St. Louis 2014, Day 4, Part One

If you ever go to St. Louis with kids, you must go to the City Museum.  The name sounds rather boring, but the place is anything but boring!  It is a bit hard to describe, but the whole museum has things built out of "found" materials from around the area and is located in an old shoe company.  And not just any things, but fun things, things to play on, climb on, slide down, crawl through.  It is a kids' paradise!  I don't know if my pictures can do it justice, but I will try. 

As you can see from the picture below, there is a whole area to explore attached to the front of the building.  I will show more of that later.  There is also a whole area on the top of the building, which costs extra, but we did not have time for it anyway.

The front of the museum. 

On the first floor, there is a very large area filled with fantastic sculptures, with paths going everywhere and things to climb in and on, many slides, both obvious and hidden.  It was amazing and quite crazy.  The kids absolutely loved it.  We tried to keep track of them closely at first, but we eventually gave up and stood in the main area, watching for them to reappear from who knows where.  There were holes in the floor, some leading to slides that went down to the basement, where they would have to climb structures to come back up.  Some of the holes led to paths underneath the floor and then the kids would show up out of some other hole.  Many of the places the kids went adults could also go, but some places required prolonged crawling that I didn't want to do.  :)

Climbing up inside a tree.

I see a head!  Some of the climbing actually took the kids up into the ceiling.

Way up high.

There goes Anne.

Dominic and Anthony explore.

We finally dragged the kids off to explore the other floors of the museum.  There were even ways to climb up and down between floors, also a big slide going from the third floor to the first floor. 

A cool mirrored tunnel.

Anthony was the only one young enough to ride the train.  The other kids climbed up into the ceiling and across, then down again until they ended up where you see the bars next to the train.

Anthony played in the little kids' area.

There was another very large room filled with ramps and giant bowl structures, with a maze under some of it.

Checking it out.

Dominic practiced his American Ninja Warrior moves.

Rope swing.

Too steep to climb, but made a great slide.

Before lunch, we made it to the magic show.  It was nice to have a rest and sit down for a while.

Waiting for the show to start.

A fun little break.

City Museum to be continued...