Today has been a delighful day. First and foremost: No headache!
We started out the day at Starbucks. Now, normally we think Starbuck is “for when you absolutely must have that high caffeine fix…but use lots of cream and sugar to kill the taste”. Well, here in St. Louis, the normal brew is a light brew. gf_guruilla likes a dark brew, so we started at Starbucks. I got a strong iced tea, and felt much better.
Our next stop was the Soulard Farmers Market, a collection of produce, flower, and misc. vendors. The produce was delightful, yet I still couldn’t figure out why California produce in Missouri (Strawberries from Watsonville, for example) was cheaper than California produce in California! We did pick up some home-grown peaches and nectarines, and saw some stuff you normally don’t see in California stores (such as green tomatoes).
We had a delightful lunch at the Soulard Coffee Garden. I was able to enjoy one of my favorite soups (French Onion), and again we had great coffee and tea!
After Soulard, we went to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour. This was good, but some of the things I remembered were gone, such as the wooden escalators in the Bevo building or the tapestries. Still, I did something I rarely do: I had about 1/2 cup of beer (an amber bock, which wasn’t half bad). Small & Feisty really enjoyed the clydesdales.
When we were at the coffee garden, we had recommended to us an excellent museum: the City Museum. This is housed in an old 4-story factory building, and is made of material recycled from other buildings torn down. It is a kids delight, with a magical forest to explore, a 5-story outdoor climing structure, art centers (we picked up two books on paper cutting), and much, much more. S&F had a wonderful time and loved the really large slides. She even got me to crawl through the tunnels with her. gf_guruilla enjoyed the paper cutting.
For dinner, we went to the Route 66 Brew House at the St. Louis Union Station. Excellent food. For those unfamiliar with Union Station, the architect took the former train station and converted it into a shopping mall and hotel. There’s still quite a bit of history there.
We ended the day by getting some ice cream at Maggie Moos in Ladue. Of course, this had the effect of winding up Small and Feisty, and we’re presently fighting to get her to bed. Win some, lose some.
P.S. @ 10:15 PM: We just got her to bed. Yeah!
