Field Trips Galore

A note to readers: This post is about our field trips over the last couple of weeks. It has a lot of pictures and some quick descriptions....if you are here to hear about the knitting...maybe you ought to skip this one and wait for another post! Click on any of the photos to see them bigger.
If you want, you can even copy and save to your computer.
The St. Louis Zoo is free. We went a couple of weeks ago, before the weather turned.
It has cool sculptures.

It has stunning butterflies. More than I've ever seen...by far. And they are Big. Even the moths are big:
That one is a Luna Moth.
The Art Museum in St. Louis is also free, and has stunning artwork. #1, above, likes realism.
#2 walks by Gainsborough, I think.
In front of the art museum is a statue of St. Louis. Did you know there was such a man?


Then we joined our homeschool group for a field trip at Rainbow Ranch Zoo. They had all the usual farm animals plus many exotic animals, and all were tame and able to be petted.
The horses were here, we pet them inside, but I liked the sign. The peacock below was running to get away. Nobody pet this one!
The ranch is also a real farm so we picked pumpkins from the ground where the vines were still attached to the pumpkins. Cheap.
There was a small corn maze and some flowers edged the maze, with some butterflies asking for photos. We obliged:
Mama was so happy to see the camels (usually wily and dangerous creatures) asking to be petted and also the Llama here.
So that's two field trips down. One to the museum and zoo. Another to Rainbow ranch. The next field trip was here:
It's a 7 acre corn maze, with two routes and ...fun. The girls were looking for the boys team. One would hide and the other would search until 10 minutes looking was over. If not found, the boys won. Even switching teams, the boys kept winning. The had the corn maze memorized. Sandboxes may be fun, but the corn crib was a blast.

We had a great day.

There is a phenomenon here which is alien to California folk. It is the Fall hayride/bonfire parties. They seem to be plentiful and are always fun. #1 went to a teen event which was a hayride and bonfire. She came home smelling like smoke and had a glow about her. Both homeschool groups had a hayride/picnic/bonfire. Tomorrow we go to a Reformation Day Picnic which is also a hayride/bonfire. Here's our first one. It was so fun!!!! It was a t a local homeschool family's farm. While the others rode, #3 got the fire really going. It was a huge bonfire. It ended up having several big logs in it at once. This was the beginning of it:
We sat around the fire for fun and roasted marshmellows.
It got dark quickly and, while petting the kittens, the kids marveled at the sky. That one is Cara, next to #3. Her family is some of our new group of friends. We are grateful for them.
The sun did set quickly, and the bonfire got bigger and bigger, while the boys whittled.It was a great night.

Then a few days later we went back to St. Louis with some of our new friends:
I don't remember who this is or why there was a statue right next to the Mississpi river, but it was fun to climb. Click on the picture to see it bigger. You can see our four and the other three.

The shore of the Mississippi is edged with the same brick as our street. Neat.
The classy businessmen may have looked askance at them, but had such fun playing at the Starbucks in the city. One of the boys brought a soccer ball everywhere he went, so the skyscapers had views of a soccer game going on down below. I didn't get a good shop of that.
There is a Farmer's Market in St. Louis.... just like the L.A. one, only a little smaller.
One of the market's shops kept my interest while the kids outside entertained everybody. A good time was had by all.