St. Louis Trip (Tips & Suggestions)

Traveling and keeping costs down is difficult on its own. Adding in all the complications of Cystic Fibrosis makes it THAT much harder to travel. My last travel post was written in February. Check out that Florida Trip Travel post! Our 3 day St. Louis trip was by car, so it was a little easier to pack. We try to take as little as we can & pack it the most efficiently we are able. However, with this list (for only 3 day/2 night trip), it's hard:

Normal Packed Items:   ( Picture from last trip, we only needed one clothing suitcase this time)

• 3 days worth of clothes


• purses/wallet


• Change of shoes/swimsuit


• tolietries


• Entertainment item: Ipod, Book, Magazine

Now Add in:

• about 12 med/pill prescriptions


• 4 breathing treatment medications per day (2 of which we keep cold)


• Portable Nebulizer machine (That was a GREAT wedding present. It's compact & runs in the car


• Vest Therapy Machine (this is a beast to pack- see picture)


• 4 therapy med cups


• Sterile Water (to use in Wabi to disinfect cups)


• Wabi Baby bottle Sterilizer (to disinfect med cups)


• sunscreen


• Ensure or high fat snacks (20 g per Orkambi Med). [Optional but buying high fat snacks for meds is A LOT more money]


• Snacks & Gatorade 12 pack [Optional, but I always purchase at Grocery Store, never Gas Station, its cheaper]

(Note: When I had a feeding tube, I needed to take 4 cans of feeding per night, connector tubes, syringes, tape, gauze. Also some CF patient require supplemental oxygen, including tanks, batteries, and more)

*St. Louis*

The trip itself was great! It was the perfect quick/not too expensive get-away for us. We wanted to take advantage of Andrew's whole weekend off (especially since we haven't received our kids yet). We are hoping to receive 2 foster kids any day now! More on that to come later. :-) I wanted to share some of the ways we keep the cost down. I highly recommend it, it's even kid-friendly. So I'm sure we will go again with the kids in the future too!

• Accommodations: Hotels can be cheaper, especially using reward points on credit cards. We don't have any credit cards and REALLY prefer B & Bs. Then our money goes to local small businesses and there are many perks, like unbelievable breakfasts! We planned this trip last minute, so it ended up $400 for the 2 nights/ with tax, etc including some snacks,drinks, and full gourmet breakfast. We stayed at Park Avenue Mansion! We loved it! The rooms were gorgeous, the food very scrumptious, and InnKeepers super friendly.

 

• Food: Wow, are there options! Ton of places to eat! It depends on what you want to spend or what you are craving! We find food the MOST important part of a trip to us. We eat more frugally at home, so we like to eat whatever we want (within reason) on trips. We don't do a ton of snacking (which keeps down costs), but eat well for our meals!
  
  
  
  • we have a tradition to eat at "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" spots (from the tv show). We have been to 7 spots in a total of 5 states so far! This weekend we did 2! Breakfast is included with our stay, but eat out lunch & dinner! We give ourselves an average of $100 /day total, which is higher than we spend most of the time.
    
    
    
    •  Guerilla Street Food (DDD): $23 - Recommend the "Flying Pig" & Spam fries!
    
    
    • BroadWay Oyster Bar: $53-  YUM! Bit of spice, but sooo good! I recommend the Crawfish Etoufee.
    
    
    • Pappy's SmokeHouse: $32 Half Slab Ribs were so good no BBQ needed. That Dry rub -wow!
    
    
    • Vin De Set: $90 - we splurged for one romantic evening/ date night! French rooftop restaurant. High Quality food while overlooking St. Louis in view of the Arch! I tried Beef Tartare for the first time and really liked it. (picture on right -us headed out for date night)
    
    
    •  Highway 61 Roadhouse (DDD): $33 I think the etoufee is better at Broadway Oyster Bar, but the mac and cheese was great!
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

3 days we spent $231 = $46 per meal/ $23 per person!

Attractions: This is where we decided to save a chunk. A few of our activities cost money, but mostly they were free or cheap.

• DAY 1: 
  
  
  
  • Lafayette Square, a few block walk through this neighborhood is gorgeous!
  
  
  • Washington Street Shopping: Lots of businesses/shops to walk through
  
  
  • Shopping on The Hill: Great area to shop/walk. Make sure to stop at Volpi Foods, Missouri Baking, etc We bought a few treats at each place. total $15
  
  
  
  


• DAY 2: 
  
  
  
  • Frank Lloyd Wright Home Tour (1 hour):
    
    
    
    • FLW is my favorite Architect & I'm somewhat of  Architecture fan/follower. I have now been to 3 of the FLW's home! tour cost $10 per person (it was little over an hour)
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Art Museum:
    
    
    
    • Free! We walked through every exhibit. Plus we went on a friday so the featured exhibits were free too! Took about 3 hours to fully walk the museum.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Cathedral  Basilica of St. Louis:
    
    
    
    • Free (we gave a donation though). We did the guided 1 hour tour. This was our favorite part of the entire trip! Very much worth the stop! The entire basilica is covered in mosaic glass tiles (over 40 million pieces), there is no paint!
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

• DAY 3: 
  
  
  
  • St. Louis Zoo! (full day) It's free!!! (However they get you will all the extras & add-ons).  So here were some helpful tips:
    
    
    
    • Parking costs $15, so we decided to park on street near Turtle Park. There is walk bridge over the street that goes right to the Park Entrance. (Certain area state no parking for zoo, so be careful where you pick).
    
    
    • You can skip adding on the train, or other shows, etc. There is plenty to do without them. Although we did pay $10 each for unlimited train pass ( I get exhausted & sun sick easy from walking in heat). So I need to take breaks and ride the train. Train costs $8, but for $2 more adds all the other perks. We saw the Sea Lion show (which was really cute).
    
    
    • pack snacks/bottle of water (if you don't mind carrying it)
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

We spent: $55 total for 3 days

Not packing too much into a day is KEY for us. I get way to wiped out if we do too much. We can't leave the B & B too early (with my 1.5 hours of meds & Breakfast) and we can't be out too late (with another hour of treatments again). We try to stick to 1 big activity or 2 smaller ones per day. Other than the sun during the zoo, I didn't have much problems on this trip at all! Whew.

Andrew says his Favorite part was seeing the Basilica & getting so close to the penguins in the zoo exhibit! He LOVES penguins!!!

 

This Saturday, I'm excited to be speaking in one of the breakout sessions about our "decision to have kids (via Fostercare). My next clinical trial appt is next week! AND Our next blog will be from Andrew, he hasn't told me what he is writing about, so I guess we will both be surprised!