24 Hours in St. Louis // June 2017

If I know one thing to be true... it's buy your concert tickets folks. You've probably heard this from me a lot, but it remains true. You don't want to miss out on tickets, unless you have to. Which is why, when Broods announced a short North American tour, we knew that driving to St. Louis (4.5 hours) would be worth it. Especially at $24 a piece for the tickets. :)

So, in mid-June we drove to St. Louis for the show, and right back the next morning. While it's never our preference to do so Juliet's mom was getting married, and we didn't want to miss it!

While we didn't do much on this trip, we do think there is a lot to do in St. Louis! So check out my past trip posts (at the bottom of this post) for ideas! :)

Eat: We only ate one meal in St. Louis, we tried Seoul Taco, a fun fusion restaurant. We tried one of each of the meat tacos, the fried rice, and the dumplings. The tacos were good, mine was very spicy. I didn't care for the fried rice, but the dumplings were amazing, They were pricer than the rest, but it was very worth it. The atmosphere in Seoul Taco was awesome. The walls reminded me of street art, and they had a deconstructed taco truck, and boomboxes spray pained in bright colors. It was a really fun dining experience. Thanks for the recommendation Will & Cara!

Do: See a concert at Delmar Hall or The Pageant. Delmar Hall is very very small which is great for seeing a band up close! I also loved that they have a little bar lounge you can wait in for the show rather than lining up outside!

Shop: The Loop (Delmar). It's full of fun specialty stores and restaurants. We loved stopping into Subterranean Books. It's relatively small, but it had a nice collection of books and atmosphere. I managed to buy a book, of course. They also had a small collection of local t-shirts and other gift items. Plus a bookstore dog, you don't see those a lot.

Broods: Broods was amazing, it was so fun to see them a second time! It was so fun to see Georgia dance around to the more up beat second album. She has amazing energy! They played pretty much all of my favorites. A girl right next to me in the crowd was there (after driving for 6 hours) for her birthday. And they sang to her! How cool is that?! They also did a cool cover of "Mad World", which was awesome. As always I highly recommend their music for your playlists and their concerts too! :)

Favorites: Broods! The bookstore and tacos were good too though. :) 

New Experiences: The Loop, Delmar Hall, Seoul Taco.

Have you been to St. Louis?

Have you ever traveled for a concert?

What is your favorite fusion restaurant?

If you are heading to St. Louis, you can check out my other trip recaps, here & here.

Happy Travels!

XO,

Alexandra

Snapshots of Metropolis, IL // July 2016

On our way home from Nashville in July, we decided to stop in Metropolis, IL. Might sound a little familiar, because Metropolis is also the name of the city where Superman takes place. It sounded like a good kitschy, silly, road trip stop... and I am so glad that we did stop! :)

We visited the teeny town of Metropolis (hehe) and went to the Super Museum, and saw the giant Superman statue it was the perfect road trip activity!

Do/See/Shop: The Super Museum + Gift Shop + Superman Statue

The museum is pretty small, and costs just $5 to enter. It is filled with a collection of superman memorabilia, and swag through the many years and iterations. It is PACKED with photos, figurines, costumes from movies, kid's toys, etc. Such a blast to see so much in one space like this. It even goes so far as to include Smallville and Lois and Clark.

The gift shop, which is free to enter, contains tons of superman and other super hero items for purchase.

The superman statue is located near the museum, and is a great photo op.

There are also several superman and supergirl cut outs located around the outside of the museum for other photo ops... I clearly stuck my head in every single one... #noshame

I'm really glad we stopped here, I love to do quirky things like this while we are on the road! :)

Have you ever been to a fun road trip stop like this? - if so, where? I'd love to know.

Happy Trails!

Alexandra

Escape // Breakout KC

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday!

I wanted to recap something really fun we did a few weeks ago!

My SIL Kels and her boyfriend Jacob love to do escape rooms. They are recently popping up all over the country, and rapidly gaining popularity here.

The idea is, you enter a locked room with a group of people and you have to use the things in the room as clues in order to escape from it. Rooms typically have themes and/or scenarios attached to them. You have one hour to break out of the room and the establishments typically keep track of the time it takes to break out and the success rate for a given room.

Kels and Jacob have been to escape rooms in Kansas City, Lawrence, and in Pittsburgh, PA. They have actually been to every single room at the place we went to, Breakout KC. The room that we did together was the last one on their list. (no pressure! :P)

We had no idea what to expect, so I will share a little bit about how an escape room works. :)

(this photo was provided by Breakout KC - thank you!)

The room that we visited had a casino theme and a 33% success rate. That's right, only one of three groups escape in 60 minutes.

While I cannot explain WHAT we did in the room, and I certainly could not take photos in the room..... I can give you some unspecific examples on the process and how a clue might work.

You start the room with a video that gives you the scenario or story that exists around your particular space. Sort of like a mystery. You then start roving around the room looking for any sort of clue that might solve your prompt. You might be looking for similar items across the room, words written on objects in the room, etc. As you go, you will end up with sets of numbers or letters that might unlock something in the room, a door, a safe, a window, etc. Anything that might need a combination. As you go, you often don't know which numbers will be the right ones, or what they might unlock. As you move through the room even more details and areas become obvious. You get more and more clues as you go, and eventually you (hopefully) break out of the room.

At Breakout KC you get 3 clues as well. So if you are feeling stumped, maybe trying the numbers or moving objects about but nothing is happening you can ask for a clue. Then someone behind the scenes will give you a clue via the TV screen. That usually helps groups get un-stuck. Kels said that she thinks using the clues at the right time is really important. For example, don't use them too soon, or you'll be out of luck later.

We were in a room with Kels and Jacob, and four other people, none of which had done an escape room before either. We ended up escaping, and making it out in the quickest time for the week! Not too shabby for beginners.

Overall it was really fun, definitely a creative date night or group activity. It wasn't too pricey for a full blown activity either. It was only $28 per person. That's pretty good for a unique hour of entertainment if you ask me! :)

As if this wasn't already fun enough and a great value, Breakout KC has offered a coupon code to my readers!

When you book online, use coupon code: KCCONVENTIONS to get 10% off your total!

This is not a sponsored post, all opinions are my own, but thank you to Breakout KC for providing a coupon code to you guys!

What do you think? Have you ever been to an escape room? Do they have them where you live?

Would you be interested in trying one?

XO,

Alexandra

24 Hours in Indiana // An All-American Road Trip

I started writing a very whiny "case of the Mondays" post... but I've ranted, and moved along. Here's something much more fun and positive to read.

Here we go:

Sometimes... you impulse buy concert tickets. Oh, you don't? Really? Just, me? Ok then.

I impulse bought concert tickets for KC last Valentine's Day... they were a REALLY good deal... and I figured it would work out pretty well to take a little extended weekend trip out to Indianapolis. KC has a good friend who lives in nearby Bloomington... it was a great plan. Well, life happens, and we were asked to go to Alaska for work less than one month later at the beginning of July and were already headed to Florida at the end of July.... so we were low on vacation days... and needing to save cash.... so, we decided on a slightly more than 24 hour trip... we might be a little nutty...

We got to see Chris and his sweet girlfriend Anna, we saw a little tiny bit of Bloomington, even less of Indy, drove a lot.... but the concert was GREAT. :) We were pretty exhausted by the time we got home... which was too bad.... but it was definitely a true road trip.

Wayyy later... here you've got some pictures!

Indianapolis, IN: 

Glass Animals at The Old National Theater - A cool venue, it used to belong to the Shrine. My grandparents were Shriners... and my grandma was really concerned about this being a Shrine building. Technically they aren't allowed to sell any of their memorabilia. : / The pillars made it kind of hard to see, and the employees were smoking in the side rooms where the alcohol was held... and setting off the fire alarms... #classy... but other than that it was a good size for seeing a band you love. Glass Animals were (was?) great live! We definitely prefer cool small venues!

Bloomington, IN:

Upland Brewing Co. - Yummy food. After being in the car I was craving veggies! They have a nice vibe, and outdoor seating there. We shared a nacho appetizer, I got a salad, I think Anna did too, and the boys got burgers and fries. 

Bloomington Bagel Company - Noms. We stopped there with Chris and Anna for a quick early morning breakfast before they were off to work. We got breakfast sandwiches with egg and sausage... but they had so many options.. it was tough to choose! We love this place... it would be amazing to have one here!

There was a cute town square surrounded by little shops. We went into the bookstore, and didn't buy anything, but looked around for a bit. We stopped by a game shop as well.. but the employees were very preoccupied with an online game... and didn't really look up.... : / The day was nice, and we had fun walking around the old buildings and sculptures. We didn't have a lot of time before we hopped back into the car!

Casey, IL: (aka the town cornering the road trip traffic crowd on "the world's largest" stuff.

This little town claims to have The World's Largest Golf Tee, The World's Largest Windchime, The World's Largest Knitting Needles, and The World's Largest Crochet Hook. That's a lot of stuff. The latter three are all close together, and the golf tee is on the golf course. It wasn't that easy to find... and the town was mostly not open yet... but we went ahead and visited all 4. And took pictures... #becauseroadtrip . The sleepy town, became a leetle bit creepy, we also wondered why exactly there would be scripture on a huge golf tee... but hey, it's the Midwest. Bottom Line: fun if there's time and you like silly road trip stuff. Definitely gave us a little time to rest from driving. (after googling, it looks like they have even more large items on display... ) and unrelated, but fun sounding, a popcorn festival. 

Highland, IL:

Blue Springs Cafe - Home of the "foot hi pie". We saw a road side sign advertising that the place was on food network for it's "foot hi pies," we love pie, so we headed that way. The place was pretty old and very '90's country (plaid table cloths, oak furniture, frilly curtains..), overall not the worst, but kind of funny. We ordered lunch, which was decent, and pies to go, because how could we not try it. KC got banana and I got chocolate. I don't really like chocolate pie.. .so I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't great. KC's was better... though overall perhaps not worth the "hype". It certainly wasn't bad... and I would prefer "real food" to fast food while on the road, so it definitely served it's purpose. I could take it or leave it. Another good, "road trip" thing though. I've never seen so much meringue.

Also, it would have been great to meet Plucky!! There just was not time! :(

What's the funniest "road side attraction" you've seen?

Do you like to take road trips?

Anyone else impulse buy tickets...?

XO,

Alexandra