Tag: erins-college-visit

Today was a day to visit Forest Park, one of the great urban parks.

We started at the St. Louis Zoo. St. Louis has a great zoo, but today’s visit seemed sad—the animals just seemed not to be enjoying themselves. Of course, the fun part at the zoo is not watching the animals in cages but the people outside of the cages. Lots of schoolkids, moms with their families, and tourists. What I like about the St. Louis Zoo is the history. Seeing the 1904 bird cage. Seeing the 1922 bear enclosures. Seeing the 1930s-era animal houses. They did have a nice exhibit on the zoo’s history, which I enjoyed.

After the zoo, we walked up art hill to the St. Louis Art Museum. This was very nice. They have a very broad mix, from mummies to columbian art, american, european, … modern, classic … art deco and art noveau … and even armor. It was a very very enjoyable museum, and Erin had a lot of fun sharing what she learned in AP Art History.

Our last museum was the History Museum. We didn’t spend as much time there, but did get to see the exhibits on the 1904 centiennial (which I had seen before, but I enjoy); the Lindberg flight (which never mentioned his antisemitism), an exhibit on a middle school named after Lindberg that went from Jr. High to Middle School to Early Childhood Education to Elementary School… and back to a Middle School. There was also a good exhibit on St. Louis’ history. This led me to bemoan the fact that there is no good museum with the history of Los Angeles and Southern California. There are scattered special cases, but nothing that brings it all together into a single story. Hmm, just like the city itself.

In the evening, we went out with my dear friend Linda to United Hebrew, the oldest Reform congregation west of the Mississippi. After services, we went out to a French restaurant for dinner, followed by FroYo, and then sat and talked for a while. A delightful evening with a friend I don’t see often enough.

Tomorrow is packing for the return trip home. We may do some more exploring after that, but we need to be at Lambert around 2pm to start our journey back to Los Angeles. You probably won’t see a post tomorrow, unless I find free WiFi in the Denver airport.

Today, my daughter fell in love.

Let me clarify. It wasn’t with a young man. It was with a university. Washington University in St. Louis to be specific.

Today we visited Wash U. Wash U is a medium-size university at the edge of Forest Park in St. Louis. The undergraduate population is about 6K, about half of which are in the college of arts and sciences. The program is very flexible, permitting a student to design their own concentrations to meet their unique needs. It is intellectually challenging, and has a wonderful compact campus with a beautiful residence hall complex. It has history, dating back to 1853, moving to the current campus shortly before the 1903 St. Louis exposition. It is an entirely non-smoking campus. We spoke to two undergraduates and one of the history professors, and they all spoke about how great Wash U was: both intellectually, socially, and personally. It is not a party school: the only partying is at the frats, which are off campus, in university-owned buildings. There are options for significant undergraduate research, internships in DC, and study abroad programs. The history program has significant breadth in US history and other history subjects, and there is a broad Poli Sci program. There are also opportunities for Erin to do lighting design on campus. [Alas, I don’t remember a lot of the details they told us, as I was fighting a bad headache much of the day]

Wash U also holds a special place for me. It is my mother’s alma-mater, and it is in a city with which I still have a family and friend connection. This means that if Erin chose to go to Wash U and got accepted, she would have family and extended family in town. That would make us feel better about her being far away; hopefully it would make her feel better as well.

What are the drawbacks to Wash U? Well, Erin is worried about acceptance, but I figure that shouldn’t be a problem. It is about as expensive at Tulane, so we would need reasonable financial assistance. I figure that we apply for all we can apply for, and if it is meant to be, we’ll get acceptance and appropriate support.

Dinner was with my cousin Les at Westwood Country Club in St. Louis. As always when we visit Westwood, it was a delightful meal. I always enjoy seeing Les and Jean; tonight was no exception.

Tomorrow is our last full day on this trip. We plan to explore Forest Park, one of the great city parks in the world (it’s larger than NY’s Central Park!). We’ll visit the St. Louis Zoo, the history museum, the art museum, and who knows what else! The evening will bring Shabbat services at UH and dinner with my dear friend Linda.

Today was our last driving day. We left Louisville about 9am, and drove across both Indiana and Illinois, stopping only briefly in Mt. Vernon IL to have Steak and Shake (I keep wanting to write that in Cleartype, as that is was Illinois loves to use).

Upon arriving in St. Louis, our first stop was Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, one of the best things in St. Louis and on Route 66! After that, we drove over to Washington University to see where we park on campus and get an idea of the look of campus. After that, it was over to the hotel.

Dinner was over in the Delmar Loop area, the “trendy” area of St. Louis near the Washington U campus. We ended up eating at Pi Restaurant, a wonderful pizza restaurant with gluten-free crusts (in fact, we got our dinner for only the tip, as they came out after 20 minutes and told us they screwed up cooking the order the first time, dropping one pizza and burning the other… and thus they comped our dinner… but the remake was wonderful). We also took some time driving around Ladue, Brentwood, Creve Cour, and U City, finding the TJs, Whole Foods, and all sorts of creature comforts.

Tomorrow is our formal visit to Wash U. We already have the tour scheduled, plus liberal arts day, meeting with two history undergraduates, as well as one of their American History professors. Dinner will be with my cousin Les at Westwood Country Club. Les is my closest relative on my mother’s side (his mother was my grandmother’s sister), and I always enjoy seeing him.

P.S.: We got out of Louisville just in time. An apparent tornado touched down at Churchill Downs this evening, about 3 miles from where our hotel was.