Hey campers.  This is a post from April 2019.  It fell behind the jack knife couch, but we’ll catch it up now.  We set up Patty at Dr. Edmund A. Babler State Park outside of Saint Louis and visited the Saint Louis Zoo and Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site over a weekend.

26 April 2019 – Home to Babler State Park

Our drive to Saint Louis was uneventful.  Traffic was good and check in was easy on a calm weekend.  The kids rode their bikes and roasted marshmallows after dinner.

27 April 2019 – Saint Louis Zoo

We got moving in the morning and met my parents, my sister’s family and a few of my cousins at the zoo.  My sister gave the kids each an experience at the zoo for Christmas:  Train Engineer for the Day and the Penguin Encounter.

Engineer for the Day

Will is a gearhead for all things mechanical.  Trucks, cars, trains, whatever!  So my sister thought this experience at Saint Louis Zoo was right up his alley.  We had to be at the engine house right as the zoo opened.  The first part of the experience is a tour of the engine house and understanding the maintenance.  Will’s engineer showed him all about the engines, what made each one unique, where the train crews worked and rested during the workday, and so on.  Will was also fitted with his engineer hat, neckerchief, and a rain coat (it was rainy and bordering on miserable).

 

After our tour Will got some safety pointers and we walked around an engine and started work.  The engineer rode in the engine with Will and I rode in the first car behind them.  The engineer told Will what levers and buttons to pull and push.  Will rang the bell at all the crossings.  As the day progressed and the engineer was confident in Will’s abilities, Will got to do more autonomously.  Of course, the engineer was driving the train though.

At the train stations, Will was responsible to hop off the engine and open the exit for passengers disembarking.  Once they were off, he opened the entrance and helped the engineer count new passengers on.  He had so much fun despite being exposed in cold crummy rain all morning.

At lunch time, Will and his engineer went to lunch together (part of the experience).  We had a nice time chatting with him about his experiences working for the zoo and his previous career as an educator.  After lunch, Will walked back to the engine house and was given his honorary engineer certificate.  It was a nice time.

Penguin Encounter

Katelyn got the Penguin Encounter for her gift.  She was able to take in nine other guests with her.  Katelyn and her guests met at the penguin exhibit and were walked back to a room where they washed their hands and put booties over their shoes to prevent contamination.  They were brought into another room, asked to sit on the floor, and several of the zookeepers discussed facts about penguins and the Saint Louis Zoo.

After a few minutes the zookeepers brought in the penguins.  The penguins walked on the floor with everyone else.  Some of the penguins were loud, some were shy, and some made a bit of a mess (Thankfully no one got hit!).  They spent about 30 minutes with the penguins and about an hour total for the whole encounter.  It was quite an experience.

Lunch and the Rest of the Day

Everyone grabbed lunch together when Will was eating with his engineer.  After he finished his experience, we all walked around the zoo some more.  We rode the carousel and checked out a few more zoo exhibits.

Back to Babler State Park

My family had not seen Patty and wanted to check out what RV life is like.  The cousins played all over the campground.  We lost track of them for awhile because they linked up with some kids down the road and went tearing off in the woods.  Good, clean campground fun.

We gave the family a true RV experience with hobo dinners on the fire.  Everyone got to make their own and throw it on the fire.  We had some issues with the wood being wet and the fire temperature, but everyone had plenty of cooked food at the end!  Everyone finished their meals and my parents headed home while we made plans to see my sister’s family again in the morning.

28 April 2019 – Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site and Heading Home

We wanted to visit Grant NHS to keep adding to our National Park Service visits and my sister’s family decided to come with.  We met shortly after the site opened and started exploring.

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site is adjacent to Grant’s Farm (formerly owned by Grant, but now a commercial attraction owned by Anheuser-Busch).  The Park Service has retained and preserved the farmhouse and several outbuildings once owned by Grant and before that, his father-in-law.

The NHS tells the story of Grant’s time in Saint Louis and his courtship of his future wife, Julia Dent.  He was stationed in St. Louis and visited the family of his West Point classmate, Fred Dent.  Fred had a sister and the courtship began.

The NPS tells the story of how Grant became part of the family, his difficulty balancing his professional life with his personal life, and his complex relationship with his pro-slavery father-in-law.  The first floor of the home is well preserved and ranger-led tours occur regularly.

Adults and kids learned a lot about Grant and life during the time he visited, owned, and lived at the farm.  Of course my kids snagged their Junior Ranger badges.

After some good-byes to cousins, we headed back to Patty at Babler State Park.

Heading Home

We have the drill to pack and hitch Patty down pretty well by now.  A few minutes later we had Patty loaded up, took our turn in the dump station, and we were on I-70 headed for home.

It was a nice short weekend with family.  We enjoyed it and I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

 

-See you out there

Part-Time Paradise