The Great American Road Trip: Day 52

I'm starting to think I should move to St. Louis just because I would have to visit way too many times to see all the things I want to see! Angie and Will live very close to Tower Grove park, so I finally convinced myself to be up and out of bed at a semi-early hour and went running around the park and down Grand Street - it was a lot of fun to realize that I was going past a lot of places I had seen when I visited in May, I had no idea at the time that they were all in the same neighborhood.

By the time I got home and showered, Angie had gone to school and her mom had come over to watch Rollie. She brought her little dachshund mix who happened to look just like a miniature version of Walker - they looked very cute together! We talked for a little while about traveling and things to do around the city, and then I hopped in the car and drove over to the City Museum.

Imagine the coolest playground/maze/secret tunnel-filled house that you ever saw as a kid. Now make that 3 stories tall, full of caves and slides and hiding nooks, fish and trees, hollowed out airplanes and school buses - it was amazing! I was feeling adventurous and managed to get myself wedged into a few improbable places, but admittedly I was wishing I was a foot or two shorter to be able to really sneak my way into all the nooks and crannies. There's no map, no warning signs (besides to keep your hands tucked in when you go down slides) - you just go and explore and stumble on things as you go. Wednesdays and Thursdays in October it's free to go up on the roof (usually an extra charge) and since it was pretty cold out the whole museum was fairly empty and easy to explore. I went down both of the 10-story slides, got lost in the caves, and spent a good deal of time climbing around outside and playing in the ball pit. There's even a free art area where I made a mini-Gnome out of clay and cut out a calla lily snowflake - there were also places to paint, craft, and even make rag dolls/action figures.

Around 2:30 I left the museum and made my way back west a little to Forest Park. I think I could spend a week here alone - it's a huge park filled with free museums. That's right, the art museum, the zoo, the history museum, and the science center are all in one location and they're all free - how neat is that? I met Sunyata there and we proceeded to spend about 5 hours talking - outside looking over the city, inside browsing through the art museum (including the new modern art wing), and then relocated to Cafe Ventana after a quick stop to say hi to the Burkina kitties (!). I'm so glad that we managed to find a time to meet up - it was amazing to see her and start to catch each other up on all of the things going on in our lives, and I'm grateful that she suggested meeting at the art museum because otherwise I don't think I would have seen it on this trip! We skipped the coffee in favor of earl gray, but did indulge in dessert before dinner :) The lemon bar that I tried did have a slight egg-y hint to it but still tasted deliciously sweet-tart, and seemed to have a slightly crisp caramelized surface under the powered sugar as though it had a very thin brulee top from baking. When I got home I had second dessert with Will and Angie since Angie and the kids had made apple crisp using one of those old apple peeler/slicer/corer devices - it smelled too good to resist!

One of the entrances to Tower Grove Park

I'm still so impressed by the electric box artwork around town

Ginger cat in the window of the antique store on Grand

Happy Halloween!

At the City Museum - that spiral goes up into a series of plastic tunnels in the ceiling

Climbing up to the roof and the 10 story slide

View from the roof to the outdoor area, as taken from the bus that hangs out over the edge

So many places to climb and explore

Like a giant game of snakes and ladders, you find places to climb and slide nearly everywhere

The man at the top of the 10 story slide agreed to take a picture with Gnome

Kind of randomly, there were turtles and fish in the museum

Gnome and a sea lion

Yes I did slide down that, and yes I did almost get stuck in one of the tight turns

Gnome and Mini-Gnome!

The paint table

This was pretty much the extent of the warnings around the museum - it was surprising but refreshing

The slide had rollers painted in different colors that you could spin with your hands on your way down

Just climbing around

Gnome in the ball pit

The lady who designs all the snowflakes (in animal/instrument/plant shapes of all kinds) also makes patterns that you can cut out yourself - I made a calla lily snowflake