In June, I had a girls' weekend with my friends Amber and Amanda in St. Louis. I decided instead of driving from Kansas City to St. Louis why not take the Amtrak train. Let’s just say that experience made me ALWAYS want to take the train when going on a trip to St. Louis. It was wonderful not to have to drive down I-70 for 3 hours or so. I got to sit, enjoy the view, and read a book for about 5 hours.
I arrived on a Friday to St. Louis in time to check-in at my hotel. After getting my stuff into my room and taking in my view, I went to Union Station. St. Louis’ Union Station is more than just a gateway, it plays host to a variety of attractions and restaurants. I grabbed some ice cream and sat out on the boardwalk enjoying the pond. While enjoying my ice cream, the music started playing louder and louder and then fire started spitting out of the pond. Apparently starting at 5pm at the top of the hour is a fire and light show! After enjoying the show, I decided to explore a bit more, I went inside and debated about doing the aquarium, but found a ropes course instead. This ropes course is 3-stories up and tests your agility, strength, and your nerves. There are around 30 obstacles to test out as well as a 100-foot-long zip line that glides over the lobby below. I enjoyed the experience. It was quite nerve-wracking at first, but ended up being quite fun. I ate dinner at the restaurant located in my hotel and then did a video call with Michael and Lizzy. Lizzy very much missed her momma.
The next day was the official start of girls’ weekend! Amanda picked me up from my hotel and we met Amber at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The reason we were visiting the garden was because there was a special exhibit going on. This May through October, the glasswork done by Chihuly was scattered throughout the garden. We all had seen his work in Seattle and were very excited to see it. We walked around admiring all the artwork and the beautiful plants. Our favorite by far were the glasswork floating in the water and the boats. We had seen this in Seattle, but they are not in water. So, seeing these in water was a special treat.
We ate in the garden and afterwards decided to go to Cooper Hawks Winery for wine and hanging out before checking into Lemp Mansion. Lemp Mansion is the historic home of beer barons. It is now a restaurant and inn. Amber had booked us a room in the William Lemp Suite, which was originally the bed and sitting room of the beer baron and baroness.
Now some might be wondering why we would stay there; Others, of course, probably can already guess. So, to answer that burning question in the back of your head…yes, the mansion is haunted. The room we were to stay in is where William Lemp shot himself in the head, apparently over grief after losing his son Frederick. There are a number of other suicides in the family: Elsa (daughter), William Jr., and Charles (who also killed his dogs). When we had dinner, we were left of the main entrance, which was originally the former brewery office and also where William Jr. committed suicide.
Once we checked in, we got a mini tour of where we were going to stay. William Lemp Suite doesn’t have an attached bathroom but there is a bathroom down the hall for us to use. The bathroom is next to one of three vaults located in the mansion where the Lemp’s built to store their massive art collection. Each of these vaults are 15 feet wide, 25 feet deep and 13 feet high. We returned to our room and had a small session with Ghost Tube then went downstairs for dinner.
Dinner was quite elegant, and we went all out. We had fun trying the different food, the various drinks, and enjoying each other’s company. We ran into a lady who was positively freaking out that we were going to be spending the night. She lived down the street and would never stay here and she could tell us why. However, she never did tell us why. We can only guess is that she thought we didn’t know it was haunted.
With a bit of hesitancy, we got ready for bed. We sat in the common room upstairs trying to obtain any evidence, but Amanda and I ended up getting freaked out by a car backfire. We went to bed with the sound of a thunderstorm rolling in. We woke up not so refreshed and with no ghostly experience.
I got a geocache and got into Amber’s car. Amber and I were going to go back to Union Station to kill some time before I had to board my train again. We ate at one of the restaurants, where I ended up getting two ice creams because the first was given to me by mistake.
The girls’ weekend was wonderful, and the train ride was so relaxing. I finished my book and got a nice nap as I made my way back to Kansas City.
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