Searching For Cakes...Beyond (Cakes 106-112)

In the last couple of days, I grouped our remaining 140 cakes. (Currently there are only 245 cakes that are placed; when the last 5 are put out and about, I'll add them to the list.) One group is simply labeled "beyond." I think of that group as "beyond reasonable," "beyond what should have been the boundary"...you get the idea. Today, Tom and I decided to tackle some of the cakes that are in that group. I let him put the list together, and do what he thought would be doable. He came up with a list of 7 cakes. That's my man! Yippee!

The first locaketion of the day was at Six Flags in Eureka. This wasn't going to be a time to play and explore Six Flags, though. We just went by for the cake. Six Flags is a day in and of itself, and we're still sort of small for the big rides...so we're saving that for another time. We drove up to the gate, and instead of paying the $20 to park (yikes--remember that for when we do decide to stay and play), we told the guy that we were just here for the cake. He directed us to the "drop off/pick up" parking, and said we had 15 minutes. That was enough!

This looks like it could have been a zoo cake. The Six Flags cake should have had flags on it...and roller coasters...and funnel cakes and stuff. It's pretty, though!

The next cake was off the beaten path, down some winding roads. This is the Black Madonna Shrine and Grotto. We were part of a cake parade...there were four cars that all got there at the same time, and we all took turns taking pictures and comparing numbers. Our 107 was respectable, but beaten out by a family who had 160+. So funny!

On to our favorite cake of the day: Purina Farms. We couldn't have timed this better. We parked the car, took a picture of the cake, and were just in time for the dog show to start! The girls were delighted! We saw champion frisbee-catching dogs; they even caught frisbees before jumping into the pool. Holly's favorite dog was the black dog in the pictures below. His name is Ninja. Chloe liked the tiny dog, Tinkerbell.

Next, we were on our way to Shaw Nature Reserve. We didn't stay and explore this locaketion. The admission prices were pretty high, for a park. There are supposed to be some beautiful trails, though, so I'm sure it's worth it...provided that you're in a walk-the-trails-and-commune-with-nature kind of mood.

On to Meramec Caverns...one of the most remote cake spots! We were planning to tour the cave, but decided that the admission was insane. $20/adult, $10/child...yeesh! So we walked around the entry of the cave, explored the gift shop, enjoyed some ice cream, and took a riverboat tour! Holly was really pushing for the riverboat tour as soon as she saw the boats, anyway. The admission for that was $9/adult, $6/child...that's better! We all really liked our 25-minute tour of the Meramec River. We saw lots of fish jumping and turtles swimming or crawling around! We'll do this again sometime when the girls are older, and take the official tour of the cave. Holly's next "to do" item at Meramec Caverns is to zipline. She absolutely loved watching the people zipping by overhead. But Chloe swore that she would never, ever zipline!

  

At one point on the trip, the boat captain stopped and dipped an empty water bottle into the river to scoop up some water. He told us that the color of the river was from the sun reflecting off of the algae. The water is actually really clear. It was amazing...the water in the bottle was clear! I was expecting it to be a greenish-brown color.

After Meramec Caverns, we drove to Union and Washintgon to pick up their cakes. We were really tickled when Holly had Benjamin Franklin hold Purple Baby at the Franklin County Courhouse!

The cake in Washington is at the Historical Society. It's a very pretty cake; it looks like it should be at a winery. I thought this face was funny...sometimes the cake outtakes are pretty good! 

Now here are some pretty smiles!

After these seven cakes, we were all caked out. Not arguing or fussing or anything, just tired of finding cakes. I was glad that I packed lots of snacks; Tom and the girls ate them up as I drove back to South County! We got home, and switched cars to go to Smugala's for dinner. (I drove Al, my Honda Fit, all day. That's the deal when we're looking for cakes... I drive and Tom navigates. To go to dinner, we took Ozzy, Tom's Chevy Silverado. I was thrilled with that, because I'd done a LOT of driving today!) Plus, my new book, 100 Things To Do in St. Louis Before You Die (That title cracks me up!) arrived today. I wanted to look at it. Who knows? I might be able to cross things off of the bucket list while looking for cakes!