10 stories to the Top



The steps up to the Arch

Max sees the baby elephant.

We took a bit of a family vacay this weekend.  It was nice to get away, but the pile of laundry that awaited me was catastrophic!  I knew that while on this trip that I would eat worse than usual, and boy was I right.  Our hotel had free continental breakfast, with a belgian waffle maker(my favorite) sooooo, I had waaaayyy too many waffles.  But with all the walking we did, I'm sure I worked them off.  We went to the Arch and the zoo, and on Monday we went to Cahokia Mounds(had to put a little education in there for the kidlets).  The Arch was fun, as usual.  I went when I was a kid, and rode up in the elevator with my family.  I loved it, the elevators are little round-ish pods with 5 seats.  As they rise into the air they have to stay up-right, so they click and level up every so often.  This is a really cool piece of engineering.  Anyway, back to me, as I grew up I got a touch of claustriphobia and fear of elevators.  The closer we got to the elevator, the more freaked out I became.  I was literally almost having a panic attack...but I had to stay strong for the kids.  I knew if I showed my fear, Reilly would not get on.  Well, I made it all the way up!  It's only a 4 minute ride, and there is air circulation and light, so it really wasn't that bad.  It was more funny to watch the kids faces as it clicked and turned!  The views were amazing.  DH was freaked out and kept holding on to the baby like he thought he was going to fall out!  The next day was the zoo...tons of walking, all over the zoo.  We saw it all in one day.  The baby elephant was out, and the penguins, and giraffes.  Max noticed the elephants and got really excited.  It was a great family weekend, but I'm glad to be home.  My running is not going along as planned.  My brother gave up trying to motivate me I guess, so now it's up to me to motivate me. (We all know how well that goes.)  Oh well, I still have a year to go right?  So, I did well on my uphill trek, to the top of Monks Mound.  I had to rest halfway up, but I made it, and wasn't sweating that bad at the top.  The view of St Louis was amazing.  It was like the Arch was looking back at us.  We wandered around the top for a bit, then we made our way back down.  It was really neat to think of living on top of this man made hill. I wonder if the chief ever had to walk down the steps, or was everything always brought to him?  Very interesting and historical.  I actually considered going for a run after work tonight, but nope, it has to rain!  Well, the kids get up early so I'm off to bed!  Thanks for reading, and keep trying to live a healthy life!

The view from the top of Monks Mound, 10 stories up.