The start of Day Two started differently than the first day. One of the things I vowed to do on this trip was to have some fun. It’s not every day I am in Missouri so I wanted to play tourist and do touristy things, see the sights and have delicious food. In researching some of the tourist spots, I found that I wanted to see the Gateway Arch. I not only wanted to see it but I wanted to go up to the top and see St. Louis from that vantage point. In researching visiting the Arch, I found that due to the construction and the sprucing up of the Gateway Arch for their 50^th Anniversary, each person who goes to the top must have a timed ticket. I also found through reviews from others who have visited already, that going in the morning was better than later in a possibly hot day. So, I purchased my ticket for 9:10am on Tuesday, May 12^th. When I drove, I didn’t realize that traffic would be so bad, it made me late to my assigned time, but they let me up. It was so AWESOME!

Here are the pictures I took from my visit to the Gateway Arch:

I also visited the Old Courthouse. I love old buildings and this one didn’t disappoint. I love the paintings and decorations on the domed ceiling. Here are the pictures:

By this time, I had bags of souviners for my family back home and was getting hungry. I headed to a sushi place called the Drunken Fish. Their sushi was really good and the service was top notch. My waiter, David, was the best too! The Drunken Fish was in the entertainment center that was next door to the Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals baseball team. Now, I am a born and bred Dodger fan, but their stadium was a really nice one. I loved the look of the black wrought iron and red brick. I really tied in with the teams colors and was just pretty to look at! Here are the pictures I took of Busch Stadium.

After all of this walking, I decided to head to my very last cemetery that I had planned to visit.  Then it happened.  On the way to the parking structure where I had my rental car parked, I tripped on some uneven sidewalk and sprained my ankle.  In the process I also broke the handle off a coffee mug that I purchased, but we were able to repair it.  Now, I have sprained both of my ankles several times in my lifetime but this time was the worse I have ever sprained it and it was the most painful.

Now, do you think that this stopped me from going to the last cemetery of this trip? Heck No, I am a hard-core genealogist to the bone! I did go to the last cemetery on my list, Valhalla Cemetery.  Here I found my husband’s paternal grandfather and his paternal great Aunt who past away at 13. When I went to the office, the kind lady behind the desk was very helpful in helping me locate the burial plots. She did tell me that the records show that both the grandfather and great Aunt had no markers, but she told me the last name of the person they were buried next to. She was so detailed in her instructions that I found them in no time. I did search the other tombstones surrounding my husband’s grandfather and great Aunt and I found a few more family members. I came to Missouri to find a list of family member’s burial plots, couldn’t find one, but found three new ones! It was a great trip. Here are the pictures from Vahalla Cemetery:

All in all, it was a fun trip. I found most of what I was looking for and although I sprained my ankle; I had a great time in Missouri!

Up next, an recap on the NGS Convention!