Our Tropical Vacation...Part 1

Many years ago, my dear gal pal 'A' and I spent many a 6:30pm hour watching The Wheel (of Fortune) together. Of course, we always knew every puzzle and were envious of the contestants who won trips to far away lands like Bora Bora or Turks & Caicos while we sat on the couch...prizeless.

We joked around how delightful it would be to adventure to such places with all the 'extra money' we had lying around....but then our jokes started to formulate into a real life plan. Why can't we take a vacation like the ones Pat and Vanna give away? What if we just saved a little money each year for 5 years? We could totally do that. Yes...when we are 37, we will travel to a Tropical Oasis.

Fast forward to the recent present....the 5 year mark had arrived. As most of you are probably aware, in real life it's hard to set aside money for vacations. Especially when one of you has 5 kids and the other works 2 jobs just to pay the bills...so, ok, we didn't save the money. But we were not going to let that small detail get us down. We were GOING ON A VACATION. 

Turks & Caicos...out. Puerto Rico...forget it. The Sandy Beaches of the Florida Keys...nope. St. Louis, Missouri...ok! What? Yes.

Hey, we had limited funds and Southwest was having a random crazy awesome sale. We picked a city that was super cheap to fly to and that neither of us had explored and deemed it our 'Tropical Vacation Destination'....Gateway to the West, here we come!!!!

Our lovely weekend away in a nutshell:

Arriving to the airport-

Travel snacks and entertainment-

Matching boots-

Airplane- 

Instead of staying at a boring old hotel downtown, we opted for a charming Bed & Breakfast in a nearby neighborhood. If you have never stayed in a B&B before, I highly recommend it! The owner was very kind, liked to share his knowledge of the city with us, and made monster, amazing breakfast for us each morning. Rick was da bomb! (The Brewers House)-

The room was great! Complete with old antiques, large plants, TV for lounging and relaxing, a huge comfy bed, millions of pillows, free WiFi, a cool ceiling heater thingy to stay warm out of the shower and fluffy robes to top it off:

Night 1...we arrived (thanks to our rental car and 'A's superior driving skills) to the B&B in the early evening, got settled and then headed out to the Soulard Neighborhood for some dinner...its a cool neighborhood (we did some Googling to find where the cool kids hang out...Soulard was mentioned multiple times). Because we ARE cool, we naturally headed that way to find some dinner. We came upon a yummy Mexican establishment and did not regret one moment of the rest of the night. SO GOOD!!!! I had the Cheese Enchiladas and 'A' went for an equally wonderful Chimmichanga.

What could be more fun than what has already transpired, you ask? Tune in next week to see how our 'Tropical Vacation Destination' evolved and blossomed into the most PERFECT gal pal weekend getaway in the history of the world.