|
        |
We drove to St. Louis and went up the arch; well at least some of us went up the arch -- those of us who prefer to avoid extreme heights and/or confined spaces opted to stay on the ground and browse the "History of Westward Expansion" museum under the base of the arch. Here are the ladies, posing under the arch before we went inside.
Jordan and I got into the little tiny tram car with 3 other folks. Claustrophobics need not apply -- each car is about as big as the inside of a VW Beetle.
The view from the top was great, however.
Another view of the arch, this time from the ground looking straight up one of the two "legs".
After the arch, we walked up Washington Avenue, the heart of the old part of downtown St. Louis. It was truly unsettling -- it was nearly deserted, and all of the buildings stood empty. For 10 city blocks, almost no foot or automobile traffic could be seen. It did not seem like a 'bad' neighborhood, and there were some people about, but not nearly as many as we expected to find at the heart of a big city. Apparently the city had recently embarked upon a plan to rebuild and revitalize this section of town, but it was one odd walk up to "The City Museum", which was our destination. The City Museum is hard to describe. It is not a museum in any traditional sense of the word. There are things to see and do, mostly unrelated to each other. We loved it. Below is the largest pair of chonies ever made. To the right are photos that underwear devotees have sent in, wearing their undies on their heads. I am tempted...
To get from the 2nd floor to the first, one can either take the stairway, or...
...Jody and I tried both. The slide was definitely faster, and lots more fun. There was also a master glassblower there. On request, he made a perfectly spherical marble -- without molds. Below he is making a drinking glass. He talked the entire time, which taught us a lot about the fine art and craft of blowing glass. We probably spent an hour there.
Suspended on the ceiling of the first floor (but hidden from view) is a maze of plastic tunnels leading to all sorts of interesting small rooms and chambers. All 3 of us crawled through much of this, with Jordan in the lead. Jody, inside one of the little resting chambers.
After exploring the passageway in front of us, advance scout Jordan returns to make her report.
This 'tunnel' was made of iron bars, suspended from the ceiling.
Jordan emerges from a hollowed out log which was converted to a tunnel of sorts.
On the 3rd floor of the museum we found an exhibit of architectural ornaments, many taken from St. Louis buildings prior to demolition. Here are two of my favorites.
There was also the largest collection of doorknobs I could imagine, as well as hinges and other hardware -- all of it beautiful. We all had a grand time at this museum -- really interesting, and really fun, with none of the stuffiness one often finds in institutions labeled 'museum'.
We were actually camped on the Illinois side, in a little town called Cahokia. Nearby was a state park containing some of the largest mounds of the Mississippian Mound Builders, a Native American culture that flourished from about 900 to 1400 A.D. Cahokia was a prominent and populous city -- by 1450 it had around 20,000 people living in and around it, making it larger than London England at the same time. The mounds that they built were extraordinary. The photo below depicts an artist's vision of what Cahokia looked like at its peak. Note the huge mound at the right rear of the scene, now known as Monk's Mound. It took 300 years to build that, by hand. An estimated 15 million baskets full of earth were moved to create just that one mound, and there were 122 known mounds at this site alone. They were an amazingly advanced culture; they even had a solar calendar made of 48 posts, which is now known as woodhenge.
Here is Monk's Mound as it is today. The top is still quite flat.
The ladies posed at the top. You can see St. Louis in the background, with the arch dimly visible at left. The city of Cahokia extended all the way to St. Louis -- there was a mound standing in the spot where the arch now stands.
It was quite windy at the top, as you can see, although it was quite a welcome breeze -- the temperature was in the 90s that day.
Jordan descends the mound in her own unique style.
Part of the park included an excellent interpretive center, with many dioramas depicting how various anthropologists and archeologists envisioned life in Cahokia. The descendants of Cahokia are unknown; Cahokia slowly declined, until it was entirely abandoned and its peoples dispersed. One shot of one of the dioramas. Jody loves dioramas.
Another diorama shot, this time of a winter scene.
We next got in a visit with the Bernard family. Ellen Bernard and Joya had been good friends since they were 5 or 6. Ellen's sister Cora is a bit younger than Jordan. The girls and their mother, Joanie, had lived in our studio for a year or so, so our families had become friends. Below you can see us, and Cora, Joan, Claude and Ellen. We had a nice dinner at the Bernard's home, after which we went for a walk over the the St. Louis Art Faire, in Clayton.
St. Louis has a lot of street art, which we found interesting and fun. Below is a sculpture made of nickels and pennies. At his lapel is a slot for depositing coins -- he is really a gigantic piggy bank. The monies collected go toward a local charity.
Also at the Art Faire were these dubious-looking types. They are life-sized polyester resin sculptures, with 20 coats of paint or plaster to make them lifelike. They were amazing. The artist used body-casts as molds for some of his figures, prosthetic eyes, and real hair.
Ellen and Cora opted to stay overnight with us. The next day, the 3 girls got in a good swim at the campground pool.
We dropped the girls off at their home, and got hugs all around.
After dropping off the girls, we decided to take in a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium. It took us an hour or so to find parking. We bought tickets from a scalper for $10 a piece. He told us they were good seats; you can see how high up we were.
The Cardinals were playing the Dodgers -- the Dodgers lost, 5-6. Below is Mark McGuire himself at bat. We did not see him hit any homeruns, though.
And then we drove on West...
|
