A Day Of Grand Exploration

To City Museum and beyond. We decided it would be a good idea to show up as early as possible so as not to get caught in the large goddamn crowds. The building opened at 9:00am, so naturally, we showed up at 10:00am. Dad, Isaac and I headed up to the roof whilst Madre dropped the Kiz off at doggy daycare. On the top, there was a bus hanging off the side of the roof you could walk in, a long and narrow slide with a cage on top where you can climb up, a Ferris Wheel, stepping stone on a pond, around rubber duckies and underneath fountains and a wide, short slide to race on. After we spent some time up there, we had to head down to pick up Mum, where she yelled at us for ditching her because she thought only Isaac and I were going to the roof and Dad was going to wait for her. After that chamingness, we headed our separate ways into the depths of City Museum. I started out in the smallest spaces I could squeeze myself into, just because I’m cool like that. There are some really awesome underground passages and little tunnels hanging from the roof. After a while, though, more and more people started to show up, so I headed outside. There’s a maze of wires and wood outside and they make up a complex design of greatness. There’s even a couple of planes and some tunnel things heading off the wings over open air. That was the first thing I headed for, but not to long after that I sat in a puddle of scrumptious rusty water and stained my pants. I then decided to head back inside and almost got stopped by an employee because I didn’t have a parent with me. Yes, I’m obviously going in the building to cause mass destruction, somebody get me an adult so I don’t blow

anything up. I had visited the second floor earlier with Dad, and we had done the hamster wheel and gone through the bank vaults, so I decided to go up further to the third floor. They have a Robots play section up there, a cafe with vintage video games and an art room, complete with live theatre lessons. There is even an exhibit showing old things that were dug up from the old privies by an amateur. After a quick break, all of us banded together to explore the Caves, a ten story tall area resembling real caves. There were side passages everywhere and stairs leading all the way to the top where you can take a ten-story slide down to the bottom. That was our last stop of the day before we stopped because of an excess of people and other things to be done. Our first stop was the Dubliner for fish and chips and that Guinness cake before we went back to the Federal Reserve, taking the short way and not getting lost this time around. It was very well set up. You had to go through security before you could actually go inside, but that was the only annoying part. Inside, there was a cube that boasted holding a million dollars, but it was only actually two hundred and something. Further in, after an introductory video, there was some history about the Reserve and money and the economy in general. In the main room there were lots of interactive places to learn about the economy, the significance of making choices regarding money and the importance of saving for the future. We didn’t get to stay all that long, because they closed, but we got a bag of shredded money at the end, so obviously in was worth it. Then it was time for the highlight of our day: The Gateway Arch. In seeing the extremely tiny car we would be riding in to get to the top, Mum realized she didn’t really want to go, so we only bought those tickets for Dad and us siblings. We had to go across the street and down a little to actually get to the Arch, because the tickets are sold at a different area, the old court house. Us

three had to get in line for the journey to the top right away, because our time was coming up, so we parted ways with Mum and she headed off for the theatre, where they show a video about the history of the Arch. The lineup was the slowest moving thing I have ever encountered. I almost fell asleep on my feet (throwback to Brussels) before we actually got into a cart. It was five to one, so we were with two guys visiting from Seattle. The entire way up consisted of a conversation about how bad the Mariners suck. The room at the top was scarcely seven feet tall, thirty feet long and ten feet wide, with tiny little slit windows along the entire length. A claustrophobes dream, especially filled with people, but after all the minuscule tunnels I’d squeezed myself down that morning it wasn’t all that bad. We resided at the top for approximately twenty minutes and then went back down the other leg in yet another sketchy elevator thing. Back on solid ground, once Isaac stopped freaking out because “What if the Arch collapsed and we all died. What if there is wind. We’re gonna die.” blah blah blah, we ate some chocolates, checked out a little old fashioned shop and decided to go to Ballpark Village, to check out the baseball stadium and watch the game between the Cardinals and the Pirates on the screen inside. The game ended up getting rained out, but we only wanted to stay for a while anyways. Dad wanted to go to a blues bar, but we were all really tired so we ended up just going back to the trailer to sleep after we picked up Kizzy from her daycare. On our way back to the truck we went through the Central Library, a feat of excellent architecture in my opinion. Plus it was full of books, so therefore it was a win. Peace out m8s.

#stlouis #camping #illinois #missouri