Would that it were so simple.
There is a restaurant at St. Louis Union Station simply called The Soda Fountain. It serves kid-pleasing, bad nutrition food, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese, curly fries, etc. The big draw is outrageous, huge ice cream concoctions. The one my son ordered one for the table, called The King, was too much for the four of us. No one felt quarrelsome when we left.
In the entry hall of the St. Louis Aquarium. The watery projections constantly change but the circle in the center is a window into the world of real fishies. Son Andy and granddaughter Josie stare into the depths.
Of course, this is in our once-grand railway station, hence the arch with the indication To Trains. The corridor leads to a mock train car, whose windows take you on a spectacular VR ride through and over the city, and down into the Mississippi.
Because it is, as Ben Stein used to say, your moment of zen. The St. Louis Aquarium, in addition to the usual wet things, has hourly mini-shows with a variety of dry things to amuse the kids. This little armadillo kept pushing around a plastic toy as if it was its purpose in life. Maybe it was.
A kid tour of St. Louis includes the Aquarium at Union Station. It's not Seattle or Chicago, but it's not bad. I always get pictures of the jellyfish, sub-phylum Medusozoa, named to the mythological Medusa, who has snakes for hair. They are unperturbed by our presence.
We look Andy and Josie out to dinner at a local restaurant famous for its flaming desserts, particularly cherries jubilee. Josie's big sister, Audrey, talked it up big after she experienced it. I don't know the whole recipe, but after cherry sauce caramelized sugar, the server pours in brandy, tips the edge of the pan towards the burner and foooom! It's quite a show. Tastes great, too.
A day out with son Andy and granddaughter Josie. First stop was the mandatory ride to the top of the Arch. Back underneath, there was a VR experience, wandering around the bustling Mississippi riverfront in 1850. Josie must have been interested enough that she didn't notice that her hoodie was falling off.
Son Andy and granddaughter Josie, 7, are flying in early this morning for the weekend. They will take our light rail downtown from the airport, meeting us for breakfast at a locally famous hash and chili parlor. Then it's up to the top of the Arch for all of us. The afternoon plan is the zoo, and we have an exceptional one.
New stuff, in two ways. Time for some fresh material, and there is a lot of good outdoor sculpture around. (Although someday I'll do a series about the public artwork at St. Louis University, which has the worst collection of sculpture I've ever seen.) Also, while we were in Europe, the shutter crapped out on my main camera, a Fujifilm X-T5. (After only 47,000 actuations! Harrumph!) So I wanted a quality, very small camera to take anywhere, and settled on a Sony RX100 VII. I took it out for a test drive yesterday.
This is a Tom Otterness piece simply called Mouse, on Manchester Avenue at the entrance to the district known as The Grove. Its head seems to be quizzically tilted, as if wondering who is coming through.
More Route 66 neon. It would not occur to me to travel anywhere with an overnight stay without booking a hotel online in advance. It didn't used to be so. I remember a family road trip in my early teens up through New Hampshire to Quebec City. My father, who was, um, a bit of a character, drove up to the door of the Chateau Frontenac, expecting to put us up in style. Je suis désolé, monsieur, mais nous n'avons pas de chambres disponibles. Then we drove around for what seemed like a long time before ending up at Helen's Motel (sic., in English), which I recall being a bit of a dump but the kids loved it because they had a big trampoline. Vacancy.
Possibly signs that appeared along old US Route 66, or maybe just neon from a bye-gone era. Now the displays are all LEDs and Route 66 has been replaced by sections on the Interstate Highway system. More from the Missouri History Museum.
The classic cars I've been showing for the last few days were part of a program at the Missouri History Museum. It's a pretty interesting place but more about our local area than the whole state. A sign in the central hallway sets the theme. The graphic is a section of the city's flag, representing the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as the fleur-de-lys of our French origin.
The cockpit of a 1929 La Salle. I thought that its age and monochrome interior made a B&W rendering appropriate. Strange controls. The spiky thing in the center is for the headlights. There is another dial to advance or retard the spark (who can remember that?). And not a lot of us Americans know how to drive a manual transmission any more.
Another entry at the Missouri History Museum's classic car show. The cafe au lait brown color is unusual. Note the top center, with the 50s-early 60s fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror. Since I am a Frank Zappa fan, the meme reminds me of one of my favorite Mothers of Invention tracks.
This is the rear of the automobile seen in yesterday's post, identified as a Packard by a friend. The antique car license plate indicates 1949. Just what Ultramatic means was left to the imagination of the buyer. Marketing hooey has old roots.
Big, elaborate hood ornaments used to be a thing. I remember that my family's first car, a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air (we lived in NYC and didn't use it every day), had one that looked like a chrome jet plane with twin vertical tails. I'm sorry that I didn't note what this car was, but you can imagine how it could eviscerate a pedestrian in an accident. Now the marques are all flat.
Some time back I posted a picture of a dove that had built a nest in the crook of a downspout from our porch. It sat there for so long that I wondered if the eggs were still viable. Fortunately, I was wrong. Two healthy chicks have now set up residence on top of a hanging swing chair on the other side of the porch. I assume that's mom supervising. Dad was on the porch rail just below keeping watch. They seem to feel safe here,
I don't have any special skill in photographing automobiles. but it seems to me that sometimes you can get more interesting images from the details rather than the whole. If you squint, you might see me in the red jacket reflected in the letter I.
There are lots more images from our Central European expedition to edit, and I'll probably put more on Facebook, but it's time to be home. This weekend is the 100th anniversary of the official designation of Route 66, sometimes referred to as America's Mother Road. It starts in Chicago, passes through St. Louis (quite close to our home), and then gradually southwest to Los Angeles. Readers may know the song, with popular covers by St. Louisan Chuck Berry or the Rolling Stones.
There was a weekend festival to mark the occasion at the Missouri History Museum. One feature was a line-up of classic cars that may have plied the road. This is a 1939 Cadillac La Salle ambulance. Make way.
Another Central Europe memory, although there are some local things to shoot this weekend if my spine holds out. This is a cold, drizzly day at a cafe in Cesky Krumlov, with no one out for coffee and treats. The old town in southern Czechia, https://www.amazingczechia.com/destinations/cesky-krumlov/ , is the second most visited in the country after Prague.
From the Covered Market in Budapest. The prices are in Hungarian forints per kilogram. The names of the products, with one exception, are indecipherable.
