Number 47

Our good friend Emily was on vacation this week and told us that she wanted to check something off of our list with us.  We talked about doing a day trip to another state, or something else that would take us out of the St. Louis area, but since the Steelers are in the play-offs we decided to do something that would only take the morning :)  Ben suggested that we drive out to Alton, IL, to see the bald eagles that migrate to that area each winter.

We drove straight from Emily's house to the visitor's center in Alton.  Inside the visitors center there were tons of people and a couple of volunteers - with a real, live EAGLE :)  We picked up a map of the best spots to see the eagles, Ben and Emily studied the map, and we decided on a spot to try to see the eagles.

We thought we were driving to a specific spot to see the eagles, but we missed it and just kept driving until we saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the side of the road and people out of cars with cameras.  We looked high into a tree and saw a beautiful and majestic bald eagle perched on a tree branch.  We got a few pictures and then quickly got back into the car to avoid the passing traffic.  Ben was very disappointed that the Mississippi River was frozen, so there were no jumping fish for the eagles to swoop after and eat...

On our way home we stopped for lunch at "Fast Eddie's."  The food was great and super cheap - each of our burgers were $1.29!!  We were probably more impressed by the lunch than the eagles :)  Overall, it was a fun morning!!