Today was a tourist day. We hit the St Louis arch, Mississippi River cruise, stopped by the old Cathedral, old courthouse, central library, basilica, chess center, the local scout shop, Ted Drew's ice-cream place, and some retail shops that my son was desperate to go to.
Some traditional tourist destinations and some that are specific to this particular family.
The arch is amazing, the second largest manmade monument in the world and we watched the video of its construction and the way that the cranes piggybacked their way up the legs to the middle was a engineering wonder. Health and safety were, far from anyone's mind but the expected 13 deaths from construction, but not one construction worker died in making it.
Unfortunately the cathedral and the courthouse weren't open but I explained the significance of the court house and the case of Dred Scott, and his testing the judge if he had rights as a slave. The judge ruled against him and condemned slaves to property and not people! #humanrights
The basilica was so beautiful with mosaics adorning the ceilings.
This was such a reverend place and was a perfect quick stop on our way across town.
The World chess center on the other side of time had the St Louis club, museum and a shop dedicated to the sport.
There were some guys outside playing games on tables outside the club and they were definitely players. Games were played at breakneck speeds and we watched one game where the guy was seriously running out of time but clinched it with 3 seconds left on the clock.
St Louis has a scout center for the local centers and I spent a reasonable amount of time chatting to Dan about the similarity and differences of our scouting practices, and girl scouts can't be in a scout troop but can be in cubs, and rovers so we will see how that changes in time.
The shop itself was like a sweetshop for scouters with badges, equipment, awards, neckers etc but what surprised me was the lack of a national necker! I asked Dan about Sunday, international scout necker day, he seemed to not know so I'd be interested to hear if he is wearing his!
Frozen custard another food item that I'll add to my food post when we are returning home, but Ted Drewes, is an ice-cream parlour, and frozen custard is essentially what we would call ice-cream. Similar to our Italian gelatino, and just as delicious. This place is a must for anyone driving through St Louis and is always busy. The car park was full and the last time I came through on 2018 schools busses were stopping with students from an athletics meet.
It is great being a tourist seeing the sites, grabbing some culture after a wash out the previous day. St Louis has plenty of history being the gateway to the west in the days of the gold rush. Despite the relative short history here in the US there is so much to see here with the different architecture, and civil war.
No comments:
Post a Comment