travel dates: June, 2025
What with it being the gateway to the west and all, we find ourselves planning routes that take us through St. Louis pretty frequently. And we never mind, because St. Louis is a pretty great city. So when we needed to drive right through St. Louis yet again on our summer trip, we decided to linger for a couple of days and see some things. And, while we probably should see new things sometimes, for this trip we just did the same old stuff we’ve done before. (To be fair, the whole rest of the summer trip was new things. So maybe one stop with same old stuff was okay). Therefore this will be a fairly quick post (maybe), and I’ll refer you to past St. Louis posts if it’s not enough for you. Like here and here and here and here. So much St. Louis!
Also you can read about the campground we stayed at this time. But you can also read my reviews of staying at the Casino Queen or the KOA west of the city.
Ulyssses S. Grant National Historic Site
A problem with traveling with very young kids is that they forget stuff so that you feel like you have to take them everywhere (or, you know, everywhere good) again! Abe was a preschooler last time we went to Ulysses S. Grant’s house , and he wasn’t even learning US history that year! So we went again. Plus: president’s house! We love those! And Grant is one of my more favorite presidents, even, AND his house is very, very green.
Apparently this color was all the rage back in the day. Also full of arsenic? I think that’s right. Maybe they make it without arsenic today, but I wouldn’t lick the walls, just in case. Abe already had the junior ranger badge from here, so we skipped that and just looked around like grown-ups, but there was a family with younger kids doing the junior ranger book and I felt many twinges of nostalgia and regret (premature nostalgia, since Abe would go on to get several other junior badges on this trip. Or at least two). We listened to a ranger talk outside the house and then headed in for a self-guided tour. Here’s August listening to the ranger:
And then we watched the film (which, according to my blog post, we didn’t do last time because Abe was so little) and checked out the museum exhibits. We particularly liked the section about how Ulysses and Julia Grant spent 2 1/2 years of his post-presidency life on a giant world tour that took them through North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. I very much appreciate that Grant was like, “listen, I just won the Civil War and then spent 8 years being president, and now I need to go on a very, very long trip.” Also it gives the museum an excuse to have a dress up area that’s not just, like, Civil War uniforms:
We finished up with a picnic on the grounds before heading to our next stop…
(note before our next stop: we were inspired enough by our Grant house visit that we attempted to listen to an audiobook of his memoirs. I understand Grant’s memoirs are excellent, but…maybe a little dry for road trip audiobook purposes. We did listen to the Presidential podcast episode about Grant to get ready for our visit, though).
City Museum
Since the last time we visited the City Museum, Abe has gotten a lot bigger and the museum has gotten a lot more…corporate. At least officially, as it was purchased by national theme park operator Premier Parks back in 2019. So we had some concerns that the change in ownership would have toned down the untamed quirkiness we remembered from our first visit. I’m happy to report that the City Museum is largely the same these days, complete with ample opportunities to lose your toddlers or sustain injuries. At one point August and I decided it’s kind of like a more dangerous Meow Wolf (albeit with a lot less of a storyline).
The City Museum was the magnum opus of artist Bob Cassilly. It’s a nearly indescribably weird place that stretches out over 600,000 square feet and several stories of a former shoe factory and functions largely as an quirky indoor and outdoor playground with all manner of lovingly constructed and decorated slides, tunnels, caves, climbing structures, etc. etc. Especially slides.
The City Museum had a deal going where you could buy a summer pass for basically the same price as one day admission, so we got those in hopes we’d make it there twice during our short time in St. Louis. We did not, but that’s okay. They have different admission prices depending on when you go and whether you want to include the rooftop area, but basically we found the prices pretty reasonable (particularly if we want to do another Meow Wolf comparison; City Museum is much cheaper), with options starting at around $20. The $20 ticket does not include the rooftop, though, and that had been closed last time we were here, so we knew we wanted to add that on. We came here after the Grant house so we had maybe 4 hours before they closed, and we found that was plenty of time to see what we wanted (and plenty of time to exhaust us). But you might want more time if you have young kids who will get hung up in the play areas or if you spend more time eating or drinking. There is paid parking at the museum and in lots nearby, but we were able to grab free street parking very close by since it was a Sunday.
They don’t give you maps here (you can find them online) since the point is to kind of wander around and stumble on things. So we did that. We started out spending some time in the caves, which August declares the best part (and where you are most likely to lose your small children):
And then everyone except me did a 5 story slide which was sort of ouchy. There is also a 10 story slide, or at least there was, but it was closed while we were there. As far as I can tell from searching online, it’s still there and open…sometimes? most of the time? Anyway, we did it last time we were there, and it’s pretty fun! (update: a friend just got back from St. Louis while I was writing this very post, and she reports that the 10 story slide is still closed and that it seems, based the responses she got from talking to staff members, that it’s pretty unlikely to reopen. RIP (probably) 10 story slide).
So we spent a lot of time wandering inside and lingered at the skateless skate park for awhile:
…paused for a self-portrait:
We had more time this visit to check out the area full of salvaged architectural pieces:
We knew we really wanted to check out the outdoor spaces since they hadn’t been open on our last visit. First we spent a good bit of time in the MonstoCity area adjacent to the second floor. Here there’s an elaborate system of bridges and tunnels and, of course, slides. I was surprised at how brave Abe was about climbing; historically he’s pretty scared of heights, but he seems to be conquering it these days. He and Dave went off in one direction while August and I explored with somewhat less climbing.
The rooftop area requires an add-on to the general admission ticket. I read somewhere that this was originally supposed to be an actual waterpark, but it turned out water is too heavy for old shoe factory roofs. There are still some places that look like there should be more water involved.
Also there’s a school bus dangling off the edge of the roof. Here’s August looking sad in it because someone had just told him he was too tall:
I should mention at this point that it was a pretty hot day. And by now we were tired. So August and I passed on the chance to wait in a fairly long line to ride the rooftop Ferris wheel and hung out in the shade instead, waiting for Dave and Abe. But I emerged a couple of times to take pictures.
Gateway Arch National Park
We spent our other full day in St. Louis at Gateway Arch National Park. The last time we were here as a family was back in 2016, before the Arch got its official National Park status (back then it was the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial) and during a time when the museum was closed for renovation and there was a ton of construction going on all around the Arch. Basically, it’s way better now! Then:
Now (I know. it’s not the same perspective at all. It’s what I have!):
Abe and I (along with Ari and Milo, who weren’t with us for this part of this trip) did stop by, without Dave or August, when we were on our way back home from Ari’s college graduation a couple of years ago, a trip I never got around to blogging about (maybe it will still happen! We stopped a ton of places, and I have so many pictures!) But Dave and August had never seen the new museum and none of us had seen the newly renovated and reopened Old Courthouse, with new exhibits about Dred Scott (the first two trials in the Dred Scott case were tried here).
Parking the van in cities is sometimes an issue, since it’s too tall for most parking garages, but we found a surface lot a few blocks away that gave us an excuse to walk through the lovely park that surrounds the Arch.
The museum is free, but there’s a fee to take the tram up to the top of the Arch (currently around $15, depending on when you go) and you should book tickets in advance, as they do sell out. We had tram tickets at 11:10 on our day, so we had a relaxed morning at the campground before heading out, and we ended up getting there right around our ticket time. Note that you do have to go through airport like security to enter the museum and get to the trams, but things were moving quickly and smoothly when we were there.
We had a pretty decent wait for the tram, which gave us lots of time to stare at the projections on the walls and doors and listen to our very punny guide (“arch enemy” jokes were involved):
Then it was time to go up! So I’m fairly afraid of heights AND enclosed spaces, which means the Arch is not really a natural fit for me. The first time my family went up several years ago, in fact, I stayed on the ground. Not only is it very high, but you have to sit inside a very small little pod for several minutes while you go up, which gives you lots of time to look out the little window at the interior of the arch and imagine how difficult it might be to traverse the gaps on narrow beams and get to the staircase should an emergency evacuation become necessary. But! We made it up to the top!
I actually find the ride up scarier than the actual being at the top part. It is, as you can see, very enclosed (but not in a claustrophobic way) and you don’t even have to think about how high up you are unless you peek out the tiny windows:
But then! We noted a flurry of activity and hushed voices amongst the staff members and it gradually became clear that there was a problem and we were trapped! At the top of the Arch! For like twenty minutes! It was very dramatic. Well, not really. Everyone, even me, stayed very calm. So what happened, it turned out, was that the door to one of the trams was stuck partway open on our side (there are trams that go up either side of the arch). This would not have been a huge deal because they could have just run the other side up empty and taken us down on that one, except that apparently a light burned out on the other side at exactly the same time, so no one could use that side either until they dealt with that. Anyway, we got extra top of the arch time (which, it turns out, gets a little boring after awhile) and we were very glad we weren’t the people who were stuck in the little tram pod all that time. 
After surviving our ordeal and not even needing to take the stairs back down in an emergency evacuation, we realized it was time for lunch and made our way back to the van to retrieve our packed lunch. This was really the downside of our relatively far away parking space. There is a restaurant in the under-arch complex, and, of course, other options in the area, but we were trying to save some money on this day. But we survived this second ordeal of walking kinda far and headed back to the Arch and then across the street to the newly (like, a few weeks before our trip) reopened Old Courthouse. The Old Courthouse is part of the National Park largely because it’s just right there, and because the city gave it to the National Park Service, not because it has anything to do with western expansion. But it is historically significant, because the first two trials of the Dred Scott case happened here . It just underwent a 5 year restoration project and reopened with several new museum exhibits.
We didn’t have time to see everything, but we spent a good bit of time in the Dred and Harriet Scott gallery (Abe smiled because I pointed a camera at him, even though the actual information presented is very serious and bad) :
(The very quick history lesson, in much less detail than the museum exhibit: Dred Scott was an enslaved man who sued for his freedom with the argument that he had lived in a territory where slavery was illegal for several years. The case wound through the courts and eventually ended up being heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled against him with a majority decision written by Chief Justice/cartoon villain, Roger Taney. Note to current Supreme Court justices: history doesn’t like you when you’re so very, very on the wrong side:)
The Scott’s eventually gained their freedom without Taney’s help, but then Dred Scott died of tuberculosis shortly afterwards, because, as John Green tells us, tuberculosis pretty much ruins everything.
Anyway, then it was time for a ranger-led tour of the building. So our ranger was clearly very knowledgeable and invested in his topic, which was great, but the tour was a little long and detailed, particularly for 12 year old Abe. It was interesting to hear about some other cases that happened in this courthouse over the years, though: 
After the tour we continued our very Arch-intensive day with a trip back across the street to see the museum under the Arch. The museum is extensive and well-done, with lots of exhibits that take you through the history of the area. We were honestly kind of historied out by this point in the day (and Abe and I had just seen the museum not that long before), so we went through it fairly quickly.
My favorite part is the last exhibit, about the actual design and construction of the arch. You can see some of the other monument designs that were considered (they held a contest which led to us ending up with Eero Saarinen’s elegant and simple design) and also see a 3D model of the original, never completed, plan for the grounds (a living history village was involved!). Saarinen is also the tulip table and chairs guy!
There are some other “experiences” one can pay for here, including a movie about the construction of the arch. We actually bought a DVD of this movie awhile back, which is a good bit cheaper than buying several tickets.
Incidentally, in the “stuff you won’t learn in the museum” category, I recommend spending some time online exploring the weird world of people who’ve managed to fall off the top of the Arch (you don’t need to worry that this will happen to you, unless you’re doing something you really, really shouldn’t be doing to get on top of the Arch in the first place). And Arch fun fact: US Presidents (current and former) cannot go up in the arch because of security concerns. The only exception was 77 year old Dwight Eisenhower, who apparently just kind of insisted he was going up (after hours and after his presidency) and dared the Secret Service to tell him no.
And thus ended our Arch visit and our time in St. Louis! (with my all-too-common observation that this post isn’t actually short at all).
Next up: somewhere new (to us)! Kansas City
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Go, Ike!