{Road Trip} Day Nine - St. Louis and HOME!

Waking up early, we decided to hit the Gateway Arch first thing after breakfast.  Since we had gotten into town last night, we bought our tickets then and were ready to go this morning.

We walked a few blocks to the entrance of the museum (the construction is honestly a bit of a pain ~ I know that everyone will be happy to see that finished)...

and got ready to ride to the top...

The littles loved the ride almost as much as the view once at the top...

This was Hubby's first time at the top as well!

Once back down at the bottom, we explored the museum just a bit before moving on to our next stop...

{They obviously don't share my fear of taxidermy, thankfully!}

{M - "Daddy, Daddy, take my picture in front of Mountain Rushmore!"  Hubby - "We are at the Arch, now."  M - "Over here, Daddy!"  Sure enough...  She DID find "Mountain Rushmore" in the arch museum...}

Our last stop before heading home was White Haven, home of Ulysses S. Grant...

 {yes, it's green, not white}

{being sworn in as Junior Rangers}

We made one last stop to the original location of Hardscrabble, the cabin that Ulysses S. Grant built for his family.  The cabin is now owned by the Busch family and is a part of Grant's Farm.

And with that, it's a wrap!  What a wonderful trip ~ nearly 5000 miles of family fun...

I'm just sad that it is over!  Until next summer...

More {Road Trip} 2014 Fun

Day One - Indianapolis, IN

Day Two - From Springfield to Madison

Day Three - Playing Games and Winning Sights

Day Four - To the Northwest Angle and Back

Day Five - Winnipeg and the Center of North America

Day Six - Bismarck, Theodore Roosevelt and the Center of the Nation

Day Seven - Mount Rushmore and The "Street Corner" Presidents

Day Eight - Cruising Through a Few Capital Cities

{Road Trip} Day Eight - Cruising Through a Few Capital Cities

Today was a big travel day as we motored through Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri stopping at each capital city along the way...

First up ~ Lincoln, Nebraska...

up the stairs...

and back down them...

Next up ~ Des Moines, Iowa...

and a quick (and yummy!) lunch at Zombie Burger + Drink Lab...

{that's a breaded portobello mushroom "burger"}

before continuing to our last stop ~ Jefferson City, Missouri...

I love, love, love this...

They just decided all on their own to play a game of Leapfrog on the lawn as we made our way back to the car...

To me, this is what "road tripping" is all about.  It's not necessarily where we go or what we do, it's more about slowing down, just being together and enjoying precious time with each other as a family...  It's about making memories...together...

I just love these little people so much!

From Jefferson City, we continued on to our final stop, St. Louis, to grab dinner and a good night's rest...

More {Road Trip} 2014 Fun

Day One - Indianapolis, IN

Day Two - From Springfield to Madison

Day Three - Playing Games and Winning Sights

Day Four - To the Northwest Angle and Back

Day Five - Winnipeg and the Center of North America

Day Six - Bismarck, Theodore Roosevelt and the Center of the Nation

Day Seven - Mount Rushmore and The "Street Corner" Presidents

Day Nine - St. Louis and HOME!

{Road Trip} Day Seven - Mount Rushmore and The "Street Corner" Presidents

I have to admit that Mount Rushmore is one of the places that I've always wanted to visit...

and with B's interest in the presidents still prevalent, we decided that this landmark should be one of the most important stops on this summer's family road trip...

We all enjoyed the visit, but B kept walking around ~ "This is the best day ever.  This is like a once in a lifetime experience!  Thank you for planning this trip for us, Mom."  He is a big ball of energy, and there are definitely plenty of days when he wears me thin, but he really is such a sweet, sweet soul, and he loves, loves, loves his presidents and his states and capitals!

We walked the Presidential Trail along the base of the mountain...

and continued to the sculptor's studio where we got to see the model that was made before work on the mountain began.  It was so interesting to learn about how the sculpture was created, and it was so interesting to learn that approximately 400 workers worked on the sculpture and that about 90% of it was done with dynamite of all things!

{Working on their Junior Ranger badges, getting some questions answered}

As a native Georgian, I was surprised to learn that the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, was actually the original sculptor of Stone Mountain, though he left a couple of years into the project...

One of the highlights of the morning was getting to meet one of the original 400 workers, a driller, Nick Clifford...

From Mount Rushmore, we headed into Rapid City to grab a late lunch at Firehouse Brewing Co...

 

and took a tour of the street corner presidents, stopping to snap a photo with each and every single one, of course...

A big thank you to good college friend J for sending me an article on them earlier in the year.  They are honestly so spread out, taking up about 10 blocks or so up and down (on both sides of) two different streets, we might not have caught on that they were ALL there had we not known about it in advance...

 This pretty much sealed the deal on making this a fabulous day in B's book!

We couldn't leave South Dakota without swinging by the capitol building in Pierre.  We woke up a slumbering B so that he could run up those steps.  Who knows when (or IF) he'll ever be back in South Dakota again!

More {Road Trip} 2014 Fun

Day One - Indianapolis, IN

Day Two - From Springfield to Madison

Day Three - Playing Games and Winning Sights

Day Four - To the Northwest Angle and Back

Day Five - Winnipeg and the Center of North America

Day Six - Bismarck, Theodore Roosevelt and the Center of the Nation

Day Eight - Cruising Through a Few Capital Cities

Day Nine - St. Louis and HOME!