Day 213-216 - Baseball Trip

I spent several days in St. Louis, but think it will be easier to pile a few of them together in one post, so here you go, a four day whirlwind of baseball and friends, in the city I love the most - St. Louis!

I spent Sunday afternoon and evening with two of my favorite girls - Michelle and Erika. M and I watched the Cards game together before meeting up with Erika for dinner at Pujols5 restaurant, which was SO GOOD. Eventually we found our way here. 

Those of you that live in or know St. Louis will recognize these two neon arches as the outside of Ted Drewes' Frozen Custard. I was so excited to be there with two fabulous girls that had never been there before. We continued on our sugar rush, eating fabulous concretes and chattering away about seeing some Cardinal baseball together the next day!

After a day of shopping (we left a few things in the team store at the Galleria, but not much!), eating at the Cheesecake Factory, and seeing some of downtown St. Louis, the three ladies of Cardinal Diamond Diaries finally found themselves in front of home base: Busch Stadium! Chris, Erika and I (along with Michelle, who was along for our crazy ride - poor girl!) were in baseball heaven, wandering around and taking pictures during BP, enjoying constant baseball chatter and #chickcomment-ing all without Twitter, laptops and hundreds of miles separating us. It was a day we had been looking forward to for many months, and I felt truly blessed to be there with 3 such wonderful women. The best part - we were going to do it all over again the next day!

More fun to be had on Tuesday, and we started off with a little bit of history, heading over to Forrest Park to visit the 'recent' history wing of the Missouri History Museum. There were several little areas that were full of Cardinals history, and we combed through the years to learn a little bit more about the team we love. 

From there, Chris and I headed towards Busch to take a stadium tour, which I had never been on before. The most exciting thing far and away was getting to walk on the field and sit in the dugout. I quickly took a seat where Adam Wainwright is normally parked during games and put my feet up, trying to see what he sees. Definitely a different look than what I was used to!

After the tour, Chris and I hiked over to Joe Bucks. Let me tell you - it is HOT in St. Louis. When cars are registering the temperature as 118 degrees, you are not in Wisconsin anymore! After the restaurant and a swing by the hotel, the three of us CDD ladies headed back to the stadium. While we saw an absolute monstrosity of a game (18-4? Really boys?), we got a message from a friend down below who 'upgraded' our third deck seats down to the eighth row on the third base side. No complaints. We had a great time and even got to see some funny moments such as Dennys Reyes hitting and Aaron Miles pitching. We saw a pretty bad loss, but at least it was a memorable one!

Our last stop before lunch and hitting the road was to visit the site of Sportsman's Park, the place where the Cardinals played before moving downtown to Busch II. The sign will tell you the history, but we also enjoyed visiting the field that is there currently - built for the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls' Club that is housed in the 'outfield.' We stood on homeplate, the same location where everyone from Ty Cobb to Stan Musial stood in, and walked to the mound where Dizzy Dean and Bob Gibson showed off their best stuff. A perfect ending to an amazing 4 days of baseball in St. Louis.

As if it wasn't enough - Erika and I snuck down to Springfield to see the AA Springfield Cardinals play Wednesday night! Guess what? We saw another loss... they're never going to let us go back to St. Louis, are they? ;)