good Arch support

Spent a few busy days in st. Louis reconnecting with lots of my family. I have a new found appreciation for my mom and all my aunts and uncles. (she's one of nine kids!) Uncle dan and aunt Kathy were wonderful hosts and tour guides! We went all over the place! Highlights included: seeing the arch and the westward expansion museum bike riding along Grant's Farm, toasted ravioli, several museums, a brewery tour, lots of great food, and of course the chance to spend time with family!

The Arch!

At the base of the arch with Aunt Kathy

630 feet up in the top of the arch!

Getting concretes at Ted Drews! They serve your frozen custard by turning it upside down first. So good!

Looking through an old fashion view finder at the History Museum

Climbing through the crazy city museum. This place was so awesome and weird! www.citymuseum.org



Irish music at the famous McGurks bar.

M-i-ss-i-ss-i-pp-i to hot springs, arkansas

Had a great night in olive branch, ms. We ate awesome BBQ, watched Lindsay band play and saw a million hummingbirds!

After camping at hot springs national park, we partook in a traditional hot springs mineral bath. It was sooo fun and old fashioned.

The water coming out of this spring was 140 degrees!

This was the needle shower! After several different baths and a few minutes in the sweat closet, the needle shower is the last step. We're totally getting one of these.

Bath house row. Only 2 of the several bath houses are in operation now.

Move over!

Ain't no 'ham like birmingham

Visited my bestie, Cindy, and had a great night with Liz, Nelson, and John! Thanks for the nummy beer and moonshine y'all!

Sweet Home...

In Alabama for the past week staying with ma, lindsay, and blake!

Makin some super mega ultra pizza

Lindsay and Blake, we love you!

Goin' for a family ride!

Swimmin' in the Tennessee River

lauren and her sister, lindsay <3

  

freshly picked cotton

chili night

Distillers! like the football team in Pittsburgh!

We made it to Bourbon County Kentucky and found a few good places to stop! The Maker's Mark Distillery tour was the highlight! We learned a ton about bourbon. And at the gift shop they even had a dip-your-own bottle station! (A lil out of our budge, unfortunately) The next day, on the way down to Huntsville, AL, we stopped at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee.

You have to be able to dip 25 bottles per minute to work on the line!



This was a bourbon smelling thing! It was so crazy!

The extra special cave spring water at Jack Daniels

Too many creeps on the cave tour, cave tour...

Mammoth Cave National Park was sooooo cool! We opted for the "strenuous" 4 mile cave tour and spent 4.5 hours underground in a cool 54 degrees. This is the worlds longest cave system at almost 400 miles! Unfortunately, the flash on my camera died at the beginning of the tour so I didn't get too many good pictures. Oh and there wasn't a mammoth or anything found in the cave. The name just refers to how big the cave was. Mammoth-siiiize!

http://www.nps.gov/akr/maca/

p.s. By the end of the tour, we were feeling the itch to get out of the cave and away from some of the people on the tour. A couple of creepy families with a creepy kid and one really weird dude that we're pretty sure was an alien or something.

A couple days ago, on our way to Mammoth Cave NP we stopped in on Cleveland, OH to see Chris and Mollie! Just before seeing them, we squeezed in Cuyahoga national park located just south of cleveland and ohio's only NP.
Walked around a bit and got official national park passports. Yes, we're dorks. But they're so fun and every time you go to a national park or monument or anything you get stamped!
Anyway, we met up with Chris and Mollie at a polish festival, devoured some authentic kielbasa and perogies.
Later that night we hung out on the shore of lake Erie.
Saw mollie's chocolate shop and also the Christmas story house.
Thanks Chris and Mollie for the awesome couch and breakfast! Glad to see how well you're doing out there!

PS to everyone in Philly that did the NBR, y'all are awesome and wish we could have been there!

Lake Erie!

Polka at the Polish Festival!