St. Louis can be fun even when you're there for the doctor.

Road trips can be good for your knitting.

Yesterday, we sallied forth to St. Louis to take Bookworm to see a specialist at Children's Hospital.  Golf Pro drove (yay), and I spent the ride down listening to a CLE audio course while knitting on Chrysopolis.  I'm only a few rows from the end of my insert section, and will be back on the original charts the next time I pick it up.

This also means that I got to take pictures through the car windows.

We arrived, and found this in the elevator in our hotel

Once we got settled into our room, the gang went to play in the workout room while I listened to some more CLE...  Then we went out to dinner at a WONDERFUL restaurant called Lorenzo's on The Hill in St. Louis.  The food was FABULOUS.  You can see the menu here.  We shared the fried calamari (done in a way I'd never had before, but which I'd really love to have again.  My entree was the chicken spedini.  Oh my.  For dessert, we ordered a tiramisu, and a ricotta cheesecake.  The ricotta cheesecake did not impress me.  However, the tiramisu was absolutely divine! 

This morning, we slept in, went down for breakfast at about 9:00, and then headed out towards Grant Farm, where we planned to take an elephant tour.  Alas, it turns out that Grant's Farm is closed on Mondays.  So... we turned around and went to the zoo.

Our goals upon arriving were seeing the Giraffes (Bookworm's favorites) and the Elephants (Kitty's favorites).  We got sidetracked by the tortoises.  They were doing something I've never seen a tortoise do before.

He was making noises I've never heard a tortoise make before too.  Note the lady's position?  Here is where she's really glad that she has a hard shell into which she can pull her head. 

We got side tracked again ... by the Herpetology house... where I vividly remember doing an art project for school when I was a kid.  I did a pen and ink drawing of some banded lizards... I think they're black and white, because that's what my picture is.  My mom still has it hanging (or did before she moved to the house I haven't seen yet).  I couldn't find those lizards today.

The humorous thing we saw there today?  A Mountain Chicken.  Yes.  In the herpetology house. Wanna see?

We stopped in to see the monkeys -- which they have separated from the Apes.  I got no good pictures there.

Finally, we found the savannah, with beautiful zebras

and Bactrian camels --- who had a baby.

And some Addaxes (hmm... I think that's right -- one is an Addax)

And then we found the Giraffes....

Oh look!  Another baby! (There were lots of babies).  Babies are evidently no big deal at the St. Louis Zoo.  There are no signs around telling you when they babies were born.

Nearby, were some Okapi's (I love these guys -- they look to me like a cross between a giraffe and a zebra).

At this point we're all the way at the east side of the zoo.  The elephants are all the way on the west side.  We hiked over, and saw a few more fun things along the way.  This macaw for example.

And some very cute bushdogs.  Note the wee tongues.

And a bee eater (sorry about the shot... this was as good as I could do).

Isn't he pretty?

Finally, we found the elephants.  The first one was enjoying a bath.

This fellow was swimming in his "river".  Note how much of him is covered by the water.  That's some deep water.  Here he is again a few minutes later after he got out of the water.

In the next enclosure, we found the babies.

There were two elephant babies.  Again -- no signs telling us about them.  How can baby elephants be run of the mill things?

After the zoo, we drove into University City (and I did it without directions! I'm so pleased that I still remember how to get from the zoo to my old neighborhood -- I moved away when I was 14!).  We found a space RIGHT in front of our restaurant of choice:  Fitz's where they make wonderful Root Beer,

and Root Beer Floats that are a bit over the top:

And the kid's meals come in cute little cars, and the fries are smiley faces:

After this, we headed over to Children's Hospital where we met with our new specialist.  Alas, we don't know much more than we did going down.  We have another appointment there in August to go for some more tests  :-(  But, at least we have clues what we might be looking for. 

There was other knitting... but I'll put that in its own post.

Comments

[Joy]

Cool trip - glad it was *after* the heat broke! Please keep us updated on how she's doing.

[D]

Hampton has signs like those in most elevators. There's a great one of an older woman (plenty of grey & wrinkles, but still spry) jumping on the bed. It's fun, but just a little creepy. There's a really cute one of little girls walking past a picket fence pulling a Radio Flyer wagon too. Looks like you had a lovely day, even if there did have to be doctors involved.

[Colleen G]

Hmm... I guess if you turn "Zoo" on it side it looks an awful lot like "Noo!"
*snarks*
Lovely pictures. Hope you find out something from the tests and will be feeling better. I can't stay long on Wed, but we need to talk.

[janna]

I love the St Louis Zoo, although I haven't been there in years! Best zoo in the world!