That my fiance and a 5 month old would not mind doing. As much as I would like to check out the court house and museum, I don't think that they would.

I would appreciate the input

I think that's about all their is in Jeff City. If you're looking for some stuff to do, you're probably best off going to St. Louis

Don't listen to the people from St. Louis. Spoiled bastards.

For eating out, you've got pretty much anything you could want, as long as it's not Olive Garden, though there might be one in the mall. Steakhouses, Chili's, there's a really good barbecue joint up there, Chipotle, a few bars (don't bring the 5 month old, lol), all the fast food you could want, a Red Lobster, heck grab a phone book and see where you'd want to go. The nice thing is you can go pretty much anywhere and as long as it's not 6:00 on a Saturday night you shouldn't need to worry about reservations. Two places we go all the time are McAlister's which is a really awesome kickass Southern deli, and Zesto, which is a (really awesome kickss Southern) burger joint with hand-mixed soft serve shakes and malts anyway you want 'em, like 20 different flavors. Get the blueberry.

As far as shopping, you've got the Capital Mall, and then there's a little strip mall that's got Old Navy and Barnes and Noble and a really nice Petco and Pier 1 and some other little stuff like that. The wife and I go up there and windowshop a lot. Don't forget Target and Kohl's, Hobby Lobby, and a number of other places like that. Of course there's also your Circuit City and whatnot, car dealerships, all kinds of stuff like that. Just because it doesn't have a South County Mall complete with a Nordstrom and crap is no reason not to go. Even the mall's ok, it's just pretty old.

The capitol grounds are a pretty place to throw a ball or have a picnic lunch. Also look at the park adjacent to the Amtrak depot, there's a rail museum and some stuff right there. Kid might need to be a little older before he likes that stuff (perhaps even out of diapers).

When we get up to Jeff City I take a cooler and go do some grocery shopping. Seriously. HyVee and Schnucks have good quality stuff that you can get pretty cheap. Both have full-service meat counters, and dangit I like me some meat. Hy-Vee actually has a full meal buffet that's run sorta like what you could get if Chartwells actually gave half a care, with really really good food for like $8 for all you can eat. If you want to load up on really really cheap stuff I go to Mosers, they've usually got a deal where you can get chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound, and 3 pound beef roasts for about 8 or 9 bucks.

I'm sure there's other stuff to do but usually when we get through all this much we're tired and we just come home. Other things I'd look at would be the rec areas and golf courses, there's an area that's got about 8 or 10 soccer fields all tied together, there's the Performing Arts Center that books some shows every once in a while...there's an ice rink, somewhere, we haven't found it yet....

Need any other ideas?

Oh. The motorcycle shop I use is Frank's Honda/Kawi in Jefferson City. I freakin hate Stahlman's Powersports here in Rolla. Go on a test-drive. Dare ya.

Thanks for the posts bagvwf, we did make it up there today, but all three of us couldn't function very well because we all caught some virus. My wife had to go up there to take some sort of test for her job, and I wound up falling asleep with a migraine in the front seat for two hours while she took the test. I did visit the mall, and even though it's old, it's surprisingly clean. The best part about the mall is that it has a Mr. Bulky's, which closed down at Mid Rivers and some Asian store took it's place.

I would have to say that Jeff City is a pretty good place to shop, but I've been in Rolla for 5 years...I do take monthly trips up to STL to drill with the Air National Guard, but I dont get any time to go have any fun.

I spend a little more of my time in Columbia, or at least I have, but Jeff City saves us an hours drive and gets us pretty much everything we want. Unless we just HAVE to go to Bass Pro or something. (that's usually my fault)

We go to St. Louis every once in a while too but not nearly as often.

I wish there was an REI closer than Brentwood (STL). And you'd think that somewhere in central missouri would be a nice place for one. Not that I usually go to columbia/jeff city, one in Rollamo would be great.