120. CITY MUSEUM

St. Louis, Missouri

7/20/2012

This place is weird. Very weird. But fun. Very fun.

Several years ago some guy started the City Museum as sort of an art exhibit / amusement park out of demolished buildings and junk. It’s grown into a very odd place. There are these little rooms where kids can run through tunnels and then look down and see marine animals swimming about below them.

Meanwhile, there are museum cases with frontier-era pottery, bug collections, and taxidermy animals.

There’s a one-ring circus inside. Some of the performers were practicing acrobatics and juggling when we got there. Daniel and Philip started at them for a while and then starting tumbling around on the floor. Pretty funny.

There’s a miniature working train that the boys got to ride on. We thought they’d be scared, but they loved it. It was run by a dwarf.

There was an older guy working around the train place who kept making corny jokes at all the other employees as they walked by. It was clear they hated his guts.

The best part of the “museum” was an outdoor area where people could climb up all this junk and then slide down slides. It was bizarrely fun, especially since the whole place is supposed to look like it’s made out of trash – which it is. Daniel loved jumping in the giant ball pit.

Philip wanted to live more dangerously. He and I climbed to the top and then slid down a giant slide. I thought it was pretty scary, but he didn’t!

It’s really hard to describe this place. There’s so much randomness – at some places it’s a serious museum, at others it’s a sideshow sort of thing, in others it’s a kid’s play area. This was a good thing and a bad thing. I think it would depend on your mood. The City Museum tries to be so many things at once it can be kind of overwhelming, especially with a bunch of kids in tow. (Apparently, the designer’s original intention was for adults to be his primary audience: this showed, since in the tight maze-like “kid” area I lost Daniel for a while. Pretty scary.) On the other hand, that’s the entire charm. As this place grows, there seems to be no limit as to what can happen here. No doubt, there’s nowhere else on earth quite like this.

Now, Missouri, we bid you well. As we left St. Louis the boys waved goodbye to the Mississippi River one last time.

119. ST. LOUIS ARCH

St. Louis, Missouri

7/20/2012

The Gateway Arch was built in the 1960s as part of a larger expansion of the Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It symbolizes St. Louis’ role as the “gateway to the West” in the nineteenth century. The Gateway Arch is America’s tallest monument (more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty) and has become one of the most recognized landmarks of the United States.

Don’t be a fool and park in the “official” parking deck. They want $6, but if you drive down to the riverfront you can park there for only $4. Save $2, park right at the base of the Arch, plus get a great view of the Mississippi. The riverboat “Tom Sawyer” (of course) was docked close to our car when we parked. As we were getting the other kids out Daniel heard Dixieland music from the boat, and sat on the shore to listen.

We walked up to the Arch. It’s pretty darn big. What can I say?

Underneath the monument is the entrance to the elevator ride up to the top. There was a two-hour wait time for this, so we decided against going. We still went down below to see the Museum of Western Expansion. To do so, we still had to go through the airport-style security measures with x-ray machines and all that. The museum was worth a look. Philip really liked the teepee replica. He was surprised that people would live in them. “Most beautiful place in the world” lady was there, snapping pictures, but with less excitement than before.

118. ANHEUSER-BUSCH

St. Louis, Missouri

7/20/2012

St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch is the world’s biggest brewery – the makers of Budweiser and apparently 400 other brands of beer. We expected to arrive at a dingy factory for our free tour. Instead, this is a slick tourist spot. There’s a museum dedicated to the history of the company that rivals some of the other museums we’ve seen. The tour took a little over an hour, as we were moved along from twenty-something female guide to the next twenty-something female guide. (Laura noticed this part, not me!)

The tour began with a visit to the Budweiser Clydesdale horses, which actually live at the facility. The tour guide said they were originally used to discourage thieves when delivery men were away from the wagon. We also learned that if they shut the factory down the world’s supply of Budweiser beer would be gone in less than 18 hours! People drink a lot of Bud.

We’ve been to enough of these beer places to know there are always these guys… the beer guys. I saw one guy touch the vats of Budweiser like he was touching the Vietnam Wall. One guy tried to correct one of our tour guides. She said Anheuser-Busch makes Corona Beer. He said they don’t. She said they bought the company two weeks ago. He said, “Oh.” However, the oddest “fan” was an Indian woman who kept taking pictures with a huge camera. At one point she said, “This is the most beautiful place in the world.”

The tour was really designed for fans of the company. Even though it’s a PR thing for Anheuser-Busch, there really was nothing commercial about it. No one was really trying to sell anything here. Of course, they have the obligatory gift shop, but the focus of the tour was not to get you to buy anything. (We enjoyed the Stone Hill tour too, but obviously, the point there was for us to buy a bottle of wine at the end.)

We got a nice history lesson, a slick tour, and they didn’t get any of our money. Cool.

117. FOREST PARK

St. Louis, Missouri

7/20/2012

We spent the night in an America’s Best Value Inn in a small town outside of St. Louis called Bridgeton. We began the morning with a fun, but stressful mission: Knock off all of the St. Louis places and drive six hours home all in one day. Here we go!

We started off at Forest Park. The St. Louis World’s Fair happened here in 1904. Most of the exposition was designed to be easily broken down afterwards, so there’s little left. One building that was designed to last is the St. Louis Art Museum, which was the focus of our visit. The rest of the park is now the largest municipal park in the country. (Patricia says it dwarfs New York’s Central Park.) There’s a zoo and a few other museums scattered all throughout its confines. Everything is completely free. Parking is mostly free, except there are some choicer lots that charge up to $15 if you’re not willing to walk. We didn’t want to walk either, but you can guess where we parked!

The art museum was an art museum. It was a little hard to navigate with strollers. This is probably because the building was built in 1904, so elevators were probably added much later and with limits to where they could go. Nonetheless, we had to backtrack a lot to find elevators that weren’t marked very well.

The claim to fame of this museum is its pieces from Oceania. (That’s Australia and nearby islands if you’re not snobby enough to know that term.) We had to ask directions twice to find them, and when we did there were only a few pieces hidden in the back of the museum. Since these are supposed to be the big attraction here it was surprising they weren’t more prominently displayed.

I did get to see the portrait of George Washington that the artist said “will one day be worth $100.” It’s now the portrait used on every dollar bill.

The kids were a little unnerved by the mummies. They seemed to understand there were actual people in there, but that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

Daniel was mostly bored, but utterly fascinated by this giant modern art painting that was supposed to represent the Chernobyl disaster. We passed it a couple of times due to the backtracking and each time he got excited and wanted to stop and look at it again. I guess he likes modern art. About nuclear disasters. Ok. He’s moved beyond Greek statues of naked women, anyway. “Ewwwww!” he says whenever we see one now.

I can’t really complain about this museum. Remember: it anchors the biggest city park in the country. Anyone who’s a local would be crazy not to go here any chance they could. You’ve got this huge and beautiful park filled with completely free museums! Every city in America should be jealous.

116. ST. CHARLES & THE KATY TRAIL

St. Charles, Missouri

7/19/2012

St. Charles was Missouri’s first capital. The downtown area is a nice historic district, with the obligatory 50 antique stores. We drove through it, but the 104 degree heat deterred us from walking around. Besides that, it was pretty confusing to navigate. Things weren’t very clearly marked, so we wound up driving in circles and getting fairly frustrated.

It was from St. Charles that Lewis and Clark began their famous expedition to explore Thomas Jefferson’s then-recent acquisition of a major expansion to American territory through the Louisiana Purchase. I stopped in the Lewis and Clark Boat House and Nature Center just as it was supposed to close. The nice lady there was very accommodating and stayed open a little later so I could get some information. (The rest of the family stayed out in the car.) There was an elderly man there too, waiting for the woman. He asked me where I was from and he said he was from Hershey, Pennsylvania originally. We talked a few minutes about the town.

The two of them bantered back and forth about what would happen to their investments if Obama or Romney won the upcoming election. They got so into their discussion they forgot I was there. When she realized, the lady said, “I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear us talking about politics.” I said I didn’t mind.

I returned to the family and we then tried to find the Katy State Park. This was actually very confusing, even with the lady’s help. Basically, the Katy Trail is a hiking trail that runs over 200 miles throughout Missouri. Built to follow the remains of an old railway line (The Missouri-Kansas-Texas, aka the M-K-T, aka “the Katy”), Patricia calls it the nation’s skinniest and longest state park. It’s so skinny it was hard to tell where the town ended and the park began at St. Charles. We found out fast. I convinced Laura (against her better judgment) to drive down a path by the old railway line. Some irate guy ran over the car and told us to get our vehicle off the bike trail. Oops. I guess we found it. Laura was embarrassed, but it was completely my fault.

We got out of the car and explored the path a little bit. I stood at the spot where Lewis and Clark set out to indulge in my historical geekiness.

The whole trail here runs alongside the Missouri River and parts of the old railway line still stand – including a few train cars.

Daniel insisted on walking down the entire track pretending to be a train, going “Choo-choo!” and waving his arms in a way that defies description, but I think was supposed to simulate the moving parts of the train.

Before we left town we took a slight non-Patricia detour for personal reasons. I am working on a book on famous American Catholics and St. Philippine Duquesne of St. Charles is featured in it. Although she is not very well known I’ve lived and breathed her life for several months, so I couldn’t resist visiting her shrine in the north side of town. Unfortunately, by the time we got there the shrine itself was closed, but I’m still glad I got to get a look at the grounds of the community and school she founded.

115. MISSOURI WINE COUNTRY

Hermann, Missouri

7/19/2012

The little town of Hermann was founded by German immigrants in the nineteenth century. The land was bad for farming, but great for vineyards. “Who cares?” Laura and I wondered. We stopped at Stone Hill Winery (it is at the top of a hill with an idyllic view) to find out.

The tour guide informed us that at one time Stone Hill Winery (under a different name) was the third largest winery on earth! I guess Missouri wine used to be a pretty big deal. When Prohibition was passed, federal agents came to destroy the distilleries and tear up the vines. When Prohibition was repealed the town never returned its former glory – although recent entrepreneurs have revived some of the wineries to a healthy degree.

Even though we are non-drinkers, the tour was interesting. One of the cellars is called The Apostle Room because twelve huge barrels (each twelve feet high and as big as a car) with carvings of the Apostles used to sit in alcoves. It took the artist over a decade to complete the ornate carvings, so when Prohibition was passed he attempted to smuggle them out of the country. The barrels were loaded on a train, but when the train arrived the barrels were gone. The artist never recovered them and they are missing to this day.

Another good story was about a local seminary. When the company shut down, one of the distilleries was given to the priests for the making of sacramental wine. When the new proprietors tried to restart Stone Hill, they contacted the priests and discovered they still had it. The company tried to buy it, but the priests insisted they take it for free so it could return to its original home where they felt it belonged.

After the tour was the obligatory wine tasting. We abstained, but the sampler guy emptied a couple of bottles of the non-alcoholic grape juices for us. Very generous of him, since the tour only cost $2.50. It was so good we bought a bottle to take home.

As we drove away, Laura mused about how Prohibition destroyed the livelihoods of an entire town overnight. I think even the sternest teetotaler has to have some empathy for the folks who watched as strangers came to their fields and tore up the vines they had nursed for generations.

114. INDEPENDENCE

Independence, Missouri

7/19/2012

We spent the night in a Crossland in Independence, but we didn’t come to Independence for the hotel. The city was the home of Harry Truman, a fact of which every road sign is happy to remind you. In the morning we headed to the Harry Truman Library and Museum – the first presidential library every built.

This is a nice museum that has clearly been maintained and updated over the years. The layout was unconventional, but very effective. The museum starts with exhibits highlighting Truman’s fascinating presidency, and clearly laid out major moments. Truman’s controversial decision to use the atomic bomb at the closing days of World War II is tastefully defended. The rebuilding of Europe through the Marshall Plan, the beginning of the Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the formation of NATO and the United Nations all happened under Truman’s watch. We found it interesting that Truman’s promise of universal health care never came to fruition, as we debate this topic today. Truman’s controversial support of the budding Civil Rights Movement split the Democratic Party at the time: This is the man who desegregated the armed forces. I’ve always been a big Truman fan, because I’m a history nerd.

A lot of these museums are aimed at people who already worship the ground the famous person walked on, so there’s sometimes little explanation as to why this person was that important at all. I judge this museum well, though, because Laura left feeling she understood why she should care about him. We spent a lot of the car ride discussing Truman’s legacy, which is exactly what a place like this is supposed to do.

Anyway, after his presidential years, the museum then presents Truman’s early life in Independence and his return after his 8 years in the White House. Usually these museums are laid out in straight chronology, but this was way more effective. First, we learned about why we should care about Truman. Then, once we cared about him, we went back in time to his days before his fame. This worked really well, since the context of “small town boy makes it big” had already been set. More “famous guy” museums should follow this unconventional format.

On display is the famous “The Buck Stops Here” paperweight that sat on Truman’s Oval Office desk. I think few people know there’s something written on the back – I sure didn’t. This is the side that would face Truman, the side he would look at. It says, “I’m from Missouri.”

Before we left town we drove by Truman’s home and took a peek. Tours are offered for $4, but the tours were booked for over an hour and we didn’t have that much time to wait. We weren’t too upset. You know how we usually feel about these home tours. Plus, the museum was perfect. Why spoil a good thing?

When we study the Truman years in my classroom I have been told by several students over the years that I look like Harry Truman! You decide.

113. KANSAS CITY CUISINE

Kansas City, Missouri

7/18/2012

Down the road from the Jazz Museum is Arthur Bryant’s – allegedly Kansas City’s best barbecue joint. Arthur Bryant’s has received a lot of accolades over the years, so we expected it to be pretty touristy. (A famous restaurant critic for The New Yorker caused a stir when he declared it the greatest restaurant in the entire world.) Thankfully, it’s a run-down looking hole in the wall. The obligatory photos of celebrity patrons are on the wall, but apart from that you’d never know this place is famous. Only 85 people can sit in the small dining area. We ordered at a counter where customers kept streaming in. The food was cheap, came heaped up on a paper place and was awesome.

112. 18TH AND VINE

Kansas City, Missouri

7/18/2012

During Prohibition, the powers that be in Kansas City tended to look away when it came to the jazz clubs in Kansas City – most of which were situated along 18^th and Vine streets. Jazz musicians flocked from across the country and it was here, they say, jazz “grew up.” The American Jazz Museum is the only museum in the country dedicated to the American art form (this really surprises me) – by night it’s still The Blue Room jazz club with live performers.

The museum is housed in a huge building it shares with another museum on the Negro Baseball Leagues (from the days of when baseball was segregated). There were several employees milling about looking bored, but when I stood at the ticket desk for a couple of minutes no one paid any attention to me. When we tried to enter the exhibit a woman in the gift shop saw me and called me over to take my money - $10 a ticket.

We entered the first room of the museum which consisted of kiosks with headphones where you could listen to famous jazz recordings. Several of the headphones didn’t work. There were stools at some of the kiosks, but not at all of them. That was ok. I was ready to move on to the actual exhibits. “This is it,” Laura joked. Then I realized she wasn’t joking. This is the whole museum. I just spent $20 to listen to some Charlie Parker songs I could listen to at home. Patricia promised I’d see Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, but it isn’t here. It’s just some random trumpet next to a picture of Armstrong.

It took us less than fifteen minutes to do the museum. Trying to have a good spirit about it, we went through again and really tried to linger on the exhibits with a little more depth, but we couldn’t get more than half an hour out of that.

To make matters worse, shortly after we arrived, lots of people started showing up. Most people just walked into the exhibits without paying. The same employees were around, but they didn’t look like they wanted to be bothered.

I’m a big jazz fan, so this was extremely disappointing. Jazz might be America’s greatest contribution to the culture of the world. Nobody seems to care about that here.

111. NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART

Kansas City, Missouri

7/18/2012

The Nelson-Atkins is considered one of the world’s great art museums. According to Patricia, it is best known for its collection of Chinese artifacts, many of which were donated by the last emperor of China himself. (The Last Emperor is one of my mom’s favorite movies. It was required viewing in our house. She would have loved this.)

Neither Laura nor I are knowledgeable enough about art to really know if a museum is great or not. For us, it’s all about the floor plan. The Nelson-Atkins is HUGE, but it’s laid out well, so we were able to get around to everything easily. The major exhibit when we were there was dedicated to the World’s Fairs that were popular at the turn of the twentieth century.

The kids got kind of antsy after a while, so we took them out to the sculpture garden surrounding the building. It was intensely hot, but the kids needed to run around a little. The sprinklers were on so they kept getting “accidentally” splashed.

There was a kooky installation piece with solar panels asking people to write on the walls, so they had fun with that. There was a handle you could crank that would measure how long it would take you to produce the same energy as the solar panels. To avoid embarrassing myself, I won’t tell you which of us was better at this!

Parking is $5, but the museum is completely free. (There’s a charge for some special exhibits.) If there’s a genre of art you’re interested in, you’ll probably find a few pieces here. The variety helped keep the visit interesting. We actually spent about three hours here, moving at a pretty swift pace. I’m sure a serious art lover could spend a lifetime.

110. ST. JOSEPH

St. Joseph, Missouri

7/18/2012

We spent the night at a Motel 6 on the outskirts of St. Joseph. Laura has become super awesome at packing enough food for our trips. (A good trick is to make sure you stay in hotels with fridges.) We used to eat fast food a lot, which is convenient, but deceptively expensive. Dollar menus seem cheap at first glance, but they add up fast – especially now there are five of us. Nonetheless, since there was a CiCi’s pizza buffet right by the motel we gorged ourselves on gross pizza that night. (It satisfies my important “kids eat free” love.) CiCi’s is Daniel’s favorite restaurant, so it replaced “See boat” as the best part of the day. Of course, we could have stayed home and just gone to the one down the road instead, but…

In the morning we headed over to the Pony Express Museum. You may remember that St. Joseph, Missouri was once the end of American civilization. The Pony Express Company delivered mail on horseback across the western frontier to far-off California. The company only lasted 18 months before it went bankrupt, but the image of the Pony Express rider has lived on as one of the most enduring images of the Wild West.

The small facility is housed inside the stables from where the riders once set out. We arrived right as it opened, so we were the only people there. Michelle at the front desk was very accommodating to us and assured us the museum was very kid friendly – which it was. Lots of fun photo opportunities.

We usually skip the cheesy video introductions in these museums, but we decided to watch this one. It was as deliciously hammy as we had hoped. We copied “conflicted Pony Express founder staring dramatically out the window” poses from then on, whenever we could.

The museum was small, but it had a lot of fun things to look at and do – plus it was only $5. As mentioned above, the Pony Express only lasted 18 months, so it would be unreasonable to expect a museum to be much larger – unless they just started making stuff up or adding boring filler. For what it was, we enjoyed it and the kids had fun. Who could complain?

When we got there something very mundane was happening that caught my eye. The mail was being delivered.

Since we spent a lot less time at the Pony Express Museum than I had planned for we decided to make an impromptu stop at Patricia’s “other” St. Joseph suggestion – the Patee Museum. A former hotel, it was here the actual Pony Express business office was located. Today it’s a fairly large museum dedicated to St. Joseph’s 19^th century role as the end of the railroad – and hence, American civilization at the time.

It was $6 to get in here, but we’ve been to similar places that charged a whole lot more. Different displays try to recreate the streets of St. Joseph as it was in frontier days. There’s even an on-site saloon. They weren’t serving while we were there, but we put a quarter in the nickelodeon (a player piano) and the kids danced around. They were called nickelodeons because they cost a nickel to play, so I kind of wanted my twenty cents back. Yes, I am that cheap.

There was a lot to see here, and there was a special emphasis on Jesse James – the notorious outlaw was killed next door. There’s a minor display dedicated to local hero Walter Cronkite and his ancestors, which no doubt becomes more obscure with each passing day. Of course, the full-sized train was the highlight for the boys.