Well, here we are in St. Louis, and boy were we surprised what a treat this city has been. It appears very centred on the arts, and has a very cool vibe to it. There are some really fantastic things we saw here today which I’ll get into in a minute…
First, I have to admit that we rented a car today. After two weeks of no rain, today has been a pretty constant downpour and thunderstorms. We considered either taking an Uber, or trying the transit system, but we’re situated on the outskirts of the city so we just decided to rent a car and boy, were we glad we did!
We started by going to a motorcycle shop where I bought a rain suit, just in case we run in to more of the same tomorrow. Then we went for brekkie at Waffle House, which is a pretty big chain all over the U.S. It’s okay, mostly a greasy spoon type of thing, but if you’re not being fussy then it’s passable anyway…then we made our way downtown. First to the Cherokee Shopping area, which is basically a section of Cherokee Avenue, which is in the midst of gentrification and has some nice old antique shops, coffee shops, and a surprising amount of Mexican restaurants…it also houses SaxQuest, a great little saxophone shop where I was able to find a better, more comfortable strap for my tenor. I could’ve likely spent way more money there but my playing is not a level yet for making any sizeable investments 😉
We also found a cool little record shop in the basement of a business incubation place, which had a really nice jazz selection with quite a few Japanese pressings…I only bought a couple, and we’re going to have to ship them as near as I can figure, cuz I am not sure I want to stuff them in the top case of the Harley. Anyway, the proprietor of the shop went to York University, so we chatted about T.O. and Jazz for a while. So surprising!
Then we got to the fork in the road – do we go up in the arch for a view of the city, or do we go to the City Museum (which we’d seen a hint of the day before – there is a 30 foot ferris wheel on the roof!) Well, we decided that we’d try both but that we’d first go to the museum. We were there for quite a while actually, and it was absolutely the most amazing place I’ve seen in a LONG time! It was curated by a madman who died a few years ago, but it continues to be modified and built upon. It currently takes up four floors of a 15-story-or-so downtown building, and then the stuff on the roof which we didn’t get to see on account of the rain…but no problems, the first four floors were enough! It’s really hard to describe, but it’s full of donated stuff, and there are all kinds of places to explore – welded steel spiral staircases to the next floor, hidden passages and even a ‘cave’ section which housed dinosaurs in the walls, all kinds of spidery steel staircases, and a five as well as a ten story slide which goes form the top of the building to the ground! It’s absolutely glorious madness, and I am at a loss to even properly describe it…but I will share some pix at the bottom of course. I said several times to Sandra that my brother-in-law Norm would absolutely love this place…
By the time we left it was already after 5pm and the arch closes at 6pm after labour day, so we decided to drive out to the Northwest end of the city to see the “Fastlane” car dealer, which deals in classic cars. WOW! I have at least a couple friends who would absolutely love to shop at this store, with a current inventory of ~180 cars, everything from 40’s classics to 60’s and 70’s american muscle cars. Amazing stuff. They had two ’62 Galaxie 500’s there (the first car I owned was a four door ’62 Galaxie), as well as a ’70 Roadrunner (which I also owned back in the day)…they also had many other cars, which I will create a separate picture carousel for…
Lastly, we went for some Frozen Custard, and then dinner (yes, we had dessert before dinner 😉 ). The Frozen Custard place had either a sundae, or something called ‘concrete’ which was basically a blizzard, but predates it by several decades (the owner started the place in the early 50’s, and introduced the concrete at the same time). Then we went to an old school diner and it was also excellent, and so old-school…
Yet another fantastic day, and it was all so surprising to us for whatever reason…I guess I had no idea what St. Louis was all about…
Take care, readers, and more updates tomorrow (hint at what we’re doing – go Fighting Illini!)
Byron