Oh. GR8.

The yummy bagels we ate for breakfast Friday did not hold us over for long. After spending the morning in the St. Louis Temple, we were STARVING and went on a quest to get some Max & Erma's Tortilla Soup in us. We headed downtown to the St. Louis Gateway Arch Riverfront. I called the restaurants to ask for the best (best meaning closest, because it was only 1:30, but I had eaten more candy than a fat kid on Halloween, and was in serious need of real food) location to park.

Lady on the Phone: HELL-o Max'nermas. (all her words blend into one)
Me: Yes, where is the best place to park if we are coming in today for lunch?
Lady: The Stadium Parking Lot
Me: Great, thanks. Do you validate parking?
Lady: Yes.
Me: Ok, thank you, we should be in la-no use finishing, since she'd already hung up on me. rude!

We pulled into the St. Louis Cardinals Parking Garage and circled around and around looking for an empty space. We finally parked on Level 8. The garage was HUGE! 5 years ago I lost my car in a Disneyland parking garage, and learned my lesson. Before we hopped on the elevator, I took this picture and made a mental rhyme (grey+8=great!) to help myself remember where we were parked.
We were so starving by the time we got there, I was ready to eat the menu.
My friends are rude!
Luckily, it wasn't long before this came...
Along with some soft pretzel sticks that I ate before thinking to take a picture. And finally, the real deal. I swear these cookies are the reason I found happiness when we lived in Green Bay...


over an hour enjoying our yummy yummy yummy food, and mocked passers by out the window, we asked to have our parking validated.

Our hairy armpited, gold toothed waitress let us know that "there's no way she'd never be workin' here if her manager didn't pay for her parking...but they don't do that for customers."

Looks like our smart plan to park in the ridiculously expensive ballpark garage wasn't so smart after all! Our waitress did offer to have "her nephew come over and meet us at the garage. She said she's sure he'd be able to get us outta there without paying." Several things about that scenario sounded questionable, so we thanked her, and opted to just pay for the parking space ourselves and go wander around the river front for a bit.
Although the history behind Old Courthouse is incredible, I found that the 100+ year old staircase provided more entertainment.

When we returned to the parking garage we were relieved not to find Shawna's cousin there to meet us. We were NOT relieved to discover the elevator was broken! We just HAD to park on the 8th floor! It was quite a hike back up!
Needless to say, we missed you Rachelle! You're in way better shape than the rest of us and probably could have sprinted up to the top, and brought the car down for us in 2 minutes.
On the drive down, we felt like we were in one of those Little People car garages that spin the cars around in 10 circles then shoot them out the bottom.