We didn’t intend to end up at Hooters, but we did make a promise to our starving breadbaskets, to our hunger pangs, that we’d stop for food at the first place we saw as soon as the tour of Busch Stadium ended. Lo and behold, Hooters appeared before us shortly after we’d passed the National Bowling Hall of Fame, in front of which Mike struck several bowling poses in the middle of the road, and the middle of the day (where was the traffic?).
Let’s be honest, Hooters is tacky (as they proudly proclaim) and the food isn’t good (as Chris Rock remarks in his forgotten jam, ‘No Sex in the Champagne Room,’ “Nobody goes to Hooters for wings.”). Nonetheless, forging ahead in search of a more suitable restaurant was out of the question. We needed some grub.
Walking into Hooters is always unsettling, sure it feels less seedy than a strip club, but it feels immensely seedier than Applebee’s. Being in Hooters also always brings back memories of a few trips there when I was too embarrassed to look at the waitress as I ordered. It is hard not to feel like a dirty old man, yet here we were.
The hostess (who is always wearing a more reserved outfit for some reason I could never ascertain) seated us and then I saw a Hooters girl wearing a t-shirt (not the typical tank top garb). She was seated at the table (the way Hooters girls often are to pander for tips). I could immediately tell that she wasn’t your average Hooters girl and as she stood, I saw her protruding belly, hanging ominously over a pair of loose black (not orange) shorts. I knew right away that she would be our waitress.
But I am getting ahead of myself, you see, the fact that this was a seminal moment as opposed to just a funny occurrence was planted firmly on the previous night, and in order to talk about that, I have to start at the start.
DAY 1: Off the Grid, Fudge Yourself and Obliterated at The Loop
Nothing gives me more of kick than when your GPS can’t find you. “We are off the grid,” I always giddily yell. I don’t know why this gives me so much pleasure, maybe because technology is more fallible than we generally assume. Dad borrowed me his GPS device for the ride down to St. Louis, and often, it came in handy, but I’d like to think that the real reason it was there was so that I could, several times, utter the phrase.
The rain beat down steadily as we drove, surely slowing our progress toward our destination, St. Louis, Missouri. We’d continually insisted to others and ourselves that our trip would be in the hands of fate, we’d select our destination from three, out of a hat. Yet, the night before we left, after much discussion (and a general consensus from others that St. Louis was the best option) Mike texted me and suggested we just call it. Though it is comparable to Cleveland, another city we’d considered, something just seemed exciting about St. Louis.
Maybe it was that we’d had good luck with cities on rivers (Louisville and Cincinnati), maybe it was because St. Louis seemed to have the same feel as those cities (I saw the Fleur-de-lis in all of the cities and knew it was associated with St. Louis), or maybe it was because of the draw of The Arch, and the promise of a greater rewards beyond it. So I texted Mike back. St. Louis it was.
We left from my apartment in Waukesha at around midnight, happily assisted by the GPS and its annoying disembodied female robot voice. The goal was to roll into St. Louis around 7 AM so that they’d sell us a room for the next night. Our GPS crosshairs were aimed at the cheapest hotel in the downtown area, the Econolodge. We were making good time and having good conversation. During the planning stages, Mike suggested maybe going somewhere that we’d take a plane. I hate planes, but also, I’d regret not making this 6-ish hour drive and catching up on what is going on with each other.
Then the rain started and fatigue set in. We made a couple stops and were bolstered by energy infused refreshments, and as the sun began its gritty crawl into the sky (which we could only vaguely make out behind the gray rain clouds) a new wave of excitement hit us. We were almost there.
And then we saw it, in the distance, The Arch. Construction on The Gateway Arch was completed in 1965 and since then it has been the iconic symbol of the city of St. Louis, The Gateway to the West. I’d been up The Arch before, but Mike hadn’t, so I knew that, again, I’d face the tiny elevators and the thought of being 630 ft. in the air with nothing below me but a couple of slabs of metal. I hate heights.
But with the gray skies looking like they were going to take up purchase above the St. Louis skyline, I figured that I wouldn’t have to worry about this for another day or two and my focus shifted to driving over the Mississippi on what might be the skinniest bridge in the history of mankind. This bridge (the Martin Luther King Bridge) had no median, two lanes going each way and was just terrifying to drive on. It was also, from what I could tell, the main bridge into St. Louis, strange, I know.
It was immediately obvious when we pulled up to the Econolodge that we’d search for finer digs and we eventually found ourselves in a room at the Holiday Inn Select with a terrific view of the America Center (St. Louis’ convention center that is attached to the Edward Jones Dome (where the Rams try). Settling on the rate was easy when we saw the swimming pool, in the two previous years of the trip; we’d yet to stay in a place with a pool.
So it was then, at about 7:45 AM, that we lay our heads on our pillows after setting the alarm optimistically for noon. And when we did rise, near or around the time we’d planned, the first thing we did was head to the Visitors Center. There, we heard what we’d hear solidly until we board the subway later that night. The Delmar Loop was the place for two guys like us to go at night. The Loop’s pamphlet was especially impressive touting more than 100 shops, restaurants and bar, located conveniently near the colleges and a short walk from the subway station.
And as we sat down to eat at a deli a few blocks from the Visitors Center, the seemingly endless possibilities of the city of St. Louis (literally) unfolded in front of us in the glossy pages of colorful books and pamphlets. The other place that really caught our attention was the City Museum, and luckily, it was only located a few blocks west of where we already were on Washington St.
The first thing you notice about the City Museum when you approach it from 16th and Washington isn’t the sight of it (it is pushed back off the road behind bigger buildings), the first thing you notice is the sound: hundreds of kids screaming and yelling. The shouts echoed off the buildings to the west and made it seem like the sound was coming from across the street from its actual source. Yet, when you first lay eyes upon the converted building, they hardly seem believable.
Towers of twisted metal, the bodies of planes, buses and other objects rest, locked together by reinforced tubes, hundreds of feet in the air. And, like ants marching, kids and brave parents climb (and sometimes crawl) through the tubes. Dirty ball pits ring the bottom of the structure, and one thing becomes abundantly obvious: this museum (and that word MUST be used loosely) wasn’t built by someone with safety concerns. Once inside, we discovered caves and caverns of all sizes and kids crawling everywhere. We walked through several areas and Mike crawled through some caves and then we ended up in what appeared to be a large freestyle walking room (the room also housed the world’s largest working pencil). Seemed like a real easy place for kids to get hurt, but the whole time we were at the City Museum, I don’t remember anyone crying. Mike made a few running passes in this spherical half-pipe (I guess that’s how you could describe it) and then we went outside to climb around in the metal. The ominous clouds hadn’t left during our rest and as we began to climb towards the highest points of the structure, those skies opened up and the City Museum employees began yelling for everyone to get inside. Mike had been working his way towards the highest tunnel, but he had to turn back, and with that we exited this strange place for good. I felt like I wanted to jump into a giant vat of hand sanitizer, I can’t imagine the amount of colds are passed along in places like that, then again, maybe it isn’t that different from what Chuck E. Cheese was like and I’m just older and more conscious of things like that now. Either way, I was glad we saw this unbelievable place.
We headed toward Union Station, which was probably 6 or 8 blocks south. We didn’t know what we’d see there, but we’d heard that it had been turned into a mall. The edifice of the building is massive and impressive, but what we found inside was the polar opposite. The mall was pretty much deserted, not just of paying customers, but of stores as well. For ever open store, there was 2 or 3 that had been fenced up. Mike had forgotten his swimsuit and we thought that maybe we’d find one there, but it was not to be. At one point we had stopped into a little snack shop that seemed to specialize in coated popcorn (chocolate seemed to be the most popular flavor). The lady at the register was talking to someone who vaguely appeared to also work at the mall, and as mike and I went to retrieve some refreshing drinks (me-water, him-Gatorade) we overheard the lady at the counter telling the other lady that they had to be out in two weeks. From the looks of things, and the way she was talking, it seemed like the entire place was closing, which was hard to wrap my head around. What do you do with such a large commercial space when no one wants it? We continued our walk and eventually saw they had a Hard Rock Café and decided to have a drink. It was just outside the mall, but when you walked out there it was like a different world. The whole area was half covered by large sheets of metal, letting the rain in. There was large pond, surrounded by the mall, a hotel and two restaurants. It was very aesthetically pleasing, a beautiful mixture of man made and natural (even though it surely couldn’t have been natural (it reminded me a little of the giant theater in Synecdoche, New York)). This area too was deserted, as was the Hard Rock.
Our bartender recommended their most popular local microbrew, Schlafly, it was rather good. He must have just read ‘How to Talk like a Dude, Man.’ He was all about the Spicoli-surfer jargon. I hate being called “dude,” but I let it slide in this case. He recommended some heavy metal bar for us (we don’t look like heavy metal guys) so we decided to finish up and move on. We have found that one of the most effective methods of finding things to do is talking to bartenders, but this guy was no help.
As we walked back through the mall, we came to the fudge shop, where an employee was mixing fudge and yelling all about it. We must have gotten there early in the process, because then he began to sing these call and response songs and he kept insisting that if he didn’t see us participate, we wouldn’t get a free sample. Steadily the crowd built, I couldn’t believe how many people gathered in this deserted mall for a chance at free fudge. Dutifully, everyone in the crowd sang along, and the fudge was great, but we didn’t stick around to see if anyone bought it. I wondered about what it must be like for the manager to try to find a new employee, I mean what diverse, specialized skills (crowd building and fudge making). It was so very strange.
We proceeded back to our hotel, we talked about the fudge man and riffed on various sophomoric things that he could have said such as; “Tell your parents if they aren’t going to buy any fudge to go fudge themselves.” The further we got, the more x-rated they became. The walk was pretty decent and we began to notice peculiar phenomenon as we talked fudge: Every commercial building and warehouse that wasn’t in use appeared to be in the process of being converted into condos. There were blocks upon blocks of these condos downtown, they all promised ritzy rooftop views and unprecedented luxury but I couldn’t help but wondering who was going to live in these places once they were done, if they ever got done.
Before we went back to the hotel, we stopped at a liquor store and against our own good judgment bought a 12 pack of Bud Extra. It was 6 and Mike took a little nap while I read Jose Canseco’s ‘Juiced.’ After awhile, we headed to the pool (Mike in a pair of my shorts) and drank and threw around the Frisbee. We began to make a game out of it, how high we could throw it and still have the other catch it. As our derring-do increased, so did the height of the throws, bring them increasingly closer to the windows of the hotel rooms. After we wore out this activity (and this took a while) we decided it was time to get ready and go.
The walk to the subway was quick, and as we head into the underground station, I wondered if it would be worrisome, but I felt pretty safe. We bought our tickets and headed to The Loop on Delmar St. Our first order of business was to eat and as we walked down the street, many places appeared closed; after all, it was later than 9 on a Monday. Eventually we got to Blueberry Hill, which is owned by Chuck Berry (which means nothing to me). Once inside, we saw that the menu on the outside had been usurped by the nighttime menu, which basically consisted of deli sandwiches, I was bummed, but we went ahead and ordered and realize my buzz wasn’t where it needed to be, I decided to get some shots. I ordered Liquid Cocaine, which is a mighty tasty shot and watched the bartender make it, when he picked up the Bacardi 151 bottle, I knew we were in trouble. As far as I know, Liquid Cocaine consists of Jager, Rumplemintz and Goldschlager. Apparently not in St. Louis. Five minutes after taking the shot, we were both reeling. Our food came and we ate greedily, hoping to stave of this vicious early-onset drunkenness. After we finished our food, we played three games of free corkboard darts and I started to feel a bit better. Then we retreated, alone, to the smoking room to have a cigar and further our recovery. We chatted through the cigars and decided that Blueberry Hill was dead. It was time to move on.
But as we stumbled down the street we were increasingly frustrated by the lack of people we would see through each neon lit window. Finally we saw a place and walked in when the bouncer told us it was a three-dollar cover. Three bucks to sit and listen to some fake DJ spin with the four other people at the bar wasn’t worth it. We moved on. Finally, we came to The Pageant, which is St. Louis’ number one concert venue. They had a bar downstairs and when we’d walked by earlier a guy asked us if we were going to the show. “Who is playing?” I asked. “Plain White T’s,” he said. “Sorry, we don’t listen to crappy music,” I replied. Mike kind of likes the Delilah song, so I made fun of him for it, but now The Pageant was our last hope. There was another DJ there, but no cover. There was a girl in a white shirt just doing some awful dancing; arms and legs akimbo. There was no one to talk to there either, so even though the bars were open until 3, we called a cab at 1, defeated. The Loop was dead. All I remember from the cab ride is that this guy kept talking about something I think, and Mike was talking to him, but I didn’t know what to say or couldn’t think of the words so I remained quiet. I hate Bacardi 151.
Day 2: Musial, The Arch and Everyone in St. Louis is Together
Though it was slightly overcast, today would be the literal highpoint of the trip, it was Arch day. Our plan was just to head towards The Arch and pick up an early lunch on the way; we passed a number of delis that didn’t look terribly appetizing from the outside but as we came closer to The Arch, we discovered that though the area was blanketed in condos, there wasn’t a deli or eatery in our vicinity. We passed The Arch and I suggested that we continue toward the stadium, there was bound to be eateries that way.
Yet, when we walked up to the stadium we discovered that a tour began in five minutes (at 11 AM) so we decided to stay. As we took in the view of the city, made easy by the big empty space next to the new stadium where the old stadium once was, we saw a mom and three children walk up. Mike says to me, “they’re from Oak Creek.” And sure enough, after talking to them, they were from our hometown. Still, I didn’t have too much to say to people from my hometown, nor did I come to St. Louis to meet people from my hometown. Once the tour started in earnest, we were joined by several other families, and though the guided tour was excellent, one thing stood out about all else, one man, more aptly, Stan ‘The Man’ Musial. Now in his 80’s, Musial was a 20 time All Star and the best St. Louis baseball player ever, allegedly, according to our guide. We stood in the cold bridge in the stadium as our guide espoused on the career of the man. It was miserable for me and must have been even more miserable for one of the Oak Creek kids who was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The best part of the tour was probably sitting in the dugout and walking on the dirt of the field. There was lots of good natured ribbing during to tour, and Mike zinged the tour guide pretty well. Mike: Is there anywhere to eat around the ballpark? Guide: There are a couple restaurants up that way (points), there is a Hardee’s. Mike: (looks at the giant Hardee’s sign in the stadium) I’m not asking about the sponsors. Harsh to be sure, but pretty funny.
The guide was pretty mum on the subject of McGwire, which I asked about when he was talking about notable moments in Cards history. His reasoning for the lack of McGwire signage or retired numbers: He was only with the Cards for five seasons. Okay, maybe so, but during those five seasons he hit the most home runs ever in a season (only to be eclipsed a few years later by Bonds) and revived baseball which was suffering after the ’94 strike. The reason he really isn’t featured, everyone knew he was on the Juice, but of course, they aren’t going to say that.
The tour ends as our hunger pangs reach full boil. We walk and end up at the aforementioned Hooters, we sit and the pregnant waitress comes to take our orders. Now, for the most part, I wouldn’t go to Hooters. As I’ve said, I don’t really like the food and I have no desire to see women in tank tops, tight orange shorts and tights. Frankly, I don’t find the Hooters costume very attractive (more campy), it seems very 80’s to me. Nonetheless, if you do end up in Hooters because of hunger pangs and a lack of other options, the least you can expect is a Hooters girl who is wearing the gear. For us though, this was prefect, not only because it became the metaphor for the trip, but also because two very taken gentlemen don’t really have any business in Hooters (in other words, we got what we deserved).
The food was, as expected, marginal at best. Our discussion centered around whether or not waitresses who are pregnant get higher tips (I suggested that maybe at other places they did, but not Hooters). I was in a weird place because I didn’t want to be in Hooters anymore, but I also didn’t want to go up The Arch. Still, we ate and got out as fast as we could.
The Arch was in full view as we walked out of Hooters. As we approached, I decided to try out some humor. We were walking past a hotel (with The Arch standing ominously in front of me) and I said to the valet, “Excuse me, can you tell me where The Arch is?” He started for a second, then laughed and commented that it was great that we were making fun of the tourists. Being mistaken for locals is always fun on these trips; I always take it as a compliment. The giddiness of that encounter led to our next brainstorm, which was basically welcoming the works of The Arch to The Arch. “Welcome to The Arch,” we’d say as they’d stare and try to decide what to say back. After paying and waiting a couple of minutes, it was time to ride the elevator to the top. We were herded down to stand in front of small door number 8. The door seemed to be rather skinny and stood from about my knees to my nose. The idea of crawling into this small door was making me anxious. We’d be riding on the tram to the top with these two girls, one who, it was immediately obvious, was more nervous than me. Still, my nerves were more transparent as we made our ascent. They told us that one of them was from here, the other was visiting. For some reason, halfway up, the nervous girl offers me a five, and says, “We made it.” I thought that was strange. Once at the top, my nerves settled, maybe because we weren’t on this rattling, rocking tram. We look out at the river, then at downtown and its expanse of condos. The Park Ranger at the top (remember this is a monument) tells us that we are welcome to stay up here as long as we’d like. I watched a train slowly crawl towards its bridge over the Mississippi. After about 20 minutes though, we were done and we got a tram back down with a couple that didn’t talk.
With this obstacle out of the way, we decided to see what we could do about getting a tour of Budweiser. We went by our friendly Hilton doorman and he helped us get a cab out there. We were happy to learn that the tour was free, but once it commenced it became obvious that there’d be more than 80-some people upon it, ensuring that it would be very canned (though I always wish for candid). The kid who gave the tour seemed pretty cool and told us that he got two free cases a month. When we did get a chance to talk to him, we told him that he was from Milwaukee, so we bantered back and forth. Mike had just taken the Miller tour so he told our guide that they used some of the same jokes. He was surprised. The brewery room was probably the most immaculate place we were the whole time, all white and luster. They talked about the recipe for beer, they use rice, that is supposed to make the beer taste good. Mike says: “The beer tastes bad because they put that rice in it.” The minutes later says: “Here I am pretending to know something about brewing beer.” The whole time there are this dad and daughter on the tour who don’t seem to exchange even a word. It is sad. She looks sad; I nickname her “sad eyes.” Then I nickname dad “dad eyes.” I am glad that I am with Mike instead of this dad and daughter. The tour ends with the free beer tasting. After last nights Bud Extra adventure, I am scared but willing to try their American Lager. It isn’t too good. Then I try their dark beer. It is also marginal. Our tour guide comes to talk to us, most of the people on this tour are old. He doesn’t have much to offer though because he just turned 21 recently. The general consensus is that we should go to The Landing since The Loop didn’t work out. That is what we decide to do.
We take a cab back into the city and then walk the rest of the way to our hotel, only stopping briefly to get more beer (we pick Beast over any Bud products). We stop at the desk and ask where to go tonight, they say The Loop, we say we did and it was lame. They say it was a Monday night, many people say this to us. There are more excuses than empty condos in this city. Again, we are worn out from the walking and everything so we rest: I read about McGwire in Canseco’s book and Mike naps.
We get up and decide to attack the Beast in the pool. This time our Frisbee tosses are even more daring. We are jumping into the pool catching the Frisbee after it has completed its Arch like rise and fall toward the pool. The hotel seems empty. We talk ourselves into The Landing, it is just several blocks to the east. A short walk compared to all of the walking we’ve been doing.
The first bar we walk into doesn’t have food. We follow this older man to the bar they tell us has food, “the one with the neon red Budweiser sign.” They won’t have food for another thirty minutes. We walk on, leaving our older friend behind. The next bar we see is called ShowMe’s. I should have figured it was a cheap-Hooters knockoff, but I didn’t. Still, their full menu was available, even though there were only two people working and four besides us at the bar. Mike ordered a Miller Lite on tap and said it was so bad that he sent it back for a Bud Light. He offered for me to taste it, but I didn’t. I was drinking Schlafly. We got out of there after one beer and found a dueling piano bar. It was very loud in there and just like the night before, we didn’t even see an opening where we could have talked to anyone. One of the piano guys played a lousy version of “Sex on Fire,” which prompted us to spill the remnants of our bottles of Miller Lites down our throats and move along. The next bar that we found seemed slightly more alive. Many were watching the Cards blow a game (it was late, maybe 11:15, but they were playing out on the west coast). Though there were groups of people there, the only person who seemed interested in talking to us was this forty year old lady who maybe tried to hit on us by suggesting that we try on some chapstick or lip balm that she may or may not have found on the floor. Seeing again no openings, we moved along to try the place with the red Bud sign, but it was closed or closing. The only place left on The Landing that looking remotely open was the Casino, and with those you never can tell. We were hoping to find a cool bar area, have a drink and try to get some good karma going. We did a jager bomb and then walked around. This is where EVERYONE in St. Louis was.
People were on the slots, playing table games and looking lost (or like they lost). No one seemed liked they wanted to talk. We walked around the table games for a while, halfheartedly thinking that it might be time to make my debut at blackjack. We couldn't find a table that was a $5 minimum, only $10, therefore we decided not to play. We watched roulette for a while, one guy was betting a lot of money on specific numbers and he was actually winning and people were watching and then, through the drunken haze of my mind I realized (and I think Mike did at the same time) that we didn't come to St. Louis to watch some idiot win at gambling. It was only about 1:30 AM at this point, so we decided to wander through The Landing again to see if anything else was going on. Nothing was. We walked passed the bar that had had a lot of people in it that we were in before, and it was the same, with the same people, we decided to go back and drink beer at our hotel instead. The walk wasn't too bad. We actually hung out and chatted for awhile and tried to psych ourselves up for the final day of the trip.
Day 3: Cliffhangers, Free Drinks and One Last Chance to Set Things Right
The final day of our trip began with a return to the deli we went to the first day. Mike got a delicious looking French dip sandwich that I just had to try, and he wanted to have it again too. We were set on going out to Forrest Park and the subway would take us there. Riding the subway on the day was nice because we could see different parts of the city after it emerged from the underground by Busch Stadium. There is a lot of talk about building some kind of train system in Milwaukee, and generally I am against it, Mike and I spoke about this at length and my conclusion (thanks to my rudimentary understanding of the St. Louis City layout) is that it works because the proximity of all the important venues in the city are laid out in order to make it successful (nonetheless, I wasn't astounded by the amount of people on the train, for the most part it was sparse). The system extends towards the suburbs and near Forest Park it breaks apart into two lines (think a giant Y with its base at downtown). Milwaukee simply isn't formed like this and it would be hard to minimize the amount of track the way St. Louis has. Anyways, for us travelers, it came in handy and we used it several times.
Forest Park was built for the 1904 World's Fair and is twice as big as New York's Central. It has two golf courses, a zoo, baseball diamonds, an art museum and much more. It is simply an unbelievable expanse of land and was almost unfathomable that a municipality would maintain something like this 100 years after it opened. We rode the subway and got off and just began wandering, not really realizing how big the park was. Eventually we pulled out a map and luckily were proceeding in the direction of the zoo. It was beautiful, the perfect day for the zoo. The best thing about the zoo is that it was free. The second best thing about the zoo was welcoming employees to it. I realized as we were walking through that as far as traveling goes, going to the zoo doesn't really tell you much, if anything, about the city you are in. To some degree it may seem like a waste of time, but I think it is safe to say that both Mike and I universally adore zoos, so the price tag and it's location pretty much guaranteed that we'd be going to it. There isn't much of a point in talking about specific animals at the zoo or anything, but I will talk about several things. First, if you are my friend on facebook, make sure to check out the photo of the monkey statue, enough said. Secondly, they had this tiger pit where you could look in on the tigers, it was awesome for me because the big cats are always my favorite. Anyways, there was this little girl crawling around perilously close to the edge of the cage while her dad stood near her totally ambivalently to the fact that his daughter was significantly close to certain death. I was about to shout at him or something but I was worried that it would scare her and she'd fall in so I just kind of stood, paralyzed with fear for this little girl and then she got down and I was thankful, but also disappointed because this reaffirmed my belief of how many stupid people there are in the world. Later, we were walking past the bear cage and there was this bed for the bears and this lady goes, "look, a trampoline." Listen stupid lady, this isn't the circus. Unbelievable. We stayed at the zoo for a long time and once we'd made our way through the entire place, we proceeded to the Art Museum.
This is another place that won't really tell you much about the city you are in, but again, Mike and I love going to these places and especially seeing contemporary art. The building was still standing from the 1904 World's Fair and it was just awesome. People back then must have had a big thing for giant indoor open spaces because this foyer area was expansive. This was free as well, which was awesome. This museum did not disappoint, a lot of big names and awesome paintings. The most jarring moment for me was walking into this basement area and seeing three tombs that are for mummies. Sure enough, the bodies were actually there. This kind of thing scared the hell out of me when I was little, but now it just seemed weird. I can understand that they are very artistic and everything, but is also someone's dead body and I wondered what those individuals would have thought if they'd have been told thousands of years ago that they would eventually end up in a St. Louis Art Museum. Just a very weird fate. The contemporary stuff didn't disappoint, there was some awesome art work (though that wing seemed like the smallest, which was upsetting). It was almost 5 PM and we were going to go catch the train back but I convinced Mike to go see the World's Fair Pavilion. Set atop a hill and surrounded by beautiful greenery and a great waterfall (another thing that I've concluded people in the nineteenth and early twentieth century loved), we learned at the top that this structure wasn't even there for the Fair, but was built after to thank the city for putting it on. I felt let down by that. We took the walk back across the park to the subway.
On the subway we tried to decide what to do for dinner. I broke cardinal rule no. 1 by reading through a St. Louis visitors guide on the subway, but I felt alright about. Initially, we decided to go for seafood, but then I suggested that we order pizza from the place everyone had told us about, Imo's. When we walked into the hotel, the staff (who had been terrific during our stay) pointed us over to the Manager's Reception for free beer. We sat down and ended up shooting the bull with these two older gentlemen, one of which was employed at the hotel. We were talking about all sorts of crazy stuff, and it was great but also kind of sad that these were the conversations that we'd wanted to have every night, but they weren't happening. Milwaukee and St. Louis are actually pretty big rivals, I learned, because of the Brewers v. Cards and Miller v. Bud. Everyone we met were pretty good sports about it though.
The pizza came as advertised (thin crust) and it just wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. Mike wasn't crazy about his either. We had some more beast and got ready to go out for our last night on the town. There were still two or three other areas of nightlife that people had suggested to us. We decided on the Washington area, which was conveniently right up the street. We first stopped at the posh bowling alley, and although it looked like it might be a fun place to go to for people from town, for us there was nothing there. The next bar we went to was showing the Blues playoff game, which all of the people seemed to be very interested in. It was there that we decided that we'd return to Apple River again this summer, even though many of our friends don't like that trip. Before we even left, Mike's brother Nick texted us that he was in. That was exciting. We finished our beers and moved on to the Hookah bar we'd seen when we were walking to the City Museum. We both enjoy hookah, so we asked the bartender to get us one with the most popular flavor (it was White Peach) and we took a seat and these girls started ribbing Mike for using a pink hookah guard. We ended up chatting with these four girls and this guy. They seemed to be nice, but seemed more interested in making fun of our accents than actually having a chat. We talked for about a half hour and they left. We headed up to the bar and ended up talking to the bartenders for awhile. It was the typical conversation that we'd wanted to have every night. Why are we in town? What do we do? What is Milwaukee like? Still, having it felt like drinking deep of crystal cold water when you are dehydrated. Mike said if every night would have been like this, it would have been a great trip (just like Cincy and Louisville). I agreed. Surprisingly, they called last call at 1:30 AM. We were content to walk back toward the hotel and just test our fortunes, maybe somewhere else was hopping, but it wasn't and we weren't bothered. We felt just fine.
Back at the hotel, we cracked a beer and decided to hop in the pool. The gate around it was locked, so we hopped it and floated around in the darkness, pleasantly buoyed by our beverages throughout the night, we reflected on the trip that was. In the morning we'd wake up and drive back to Milwaukee in time for me to leave for Green Bay at 1:30 PM. But for now, in that lukewarm water, we were what we wanted to be, travelers in an unknown city, still searching for an adventure.
Q & A
Why do I think the nightlife was so lame?
My hypothesis is that the city was simply too big and there was too many choices, when there are so many bars and few people going out early in the week, those people are spread out. Plus, the city had more of a big city feel than Louisville and even Cincy, maybe we just picked too big of a beast.
Am I glad we picked St. Louis?
Yes, I am. Often after I see a crappy movie that I really wanted to see (like Vantage Point or the Second National Treasure), I still feel relived that I saw it because now I knew that it was lame. St. Louis is a great city to be sure, however it's early week nightlife really left something to be desired.
What was my favorite part of the trip?
Aside from just getting to talk and hang out, my favorite thing we did was probably going to the zoo. It was just really leisurely and we were making a ton of jokes and just generally having a really fun time. The nights were more frustrating because we wanted some kind of transcendent experience or to make some kind of connection with the people of St. Louis and that just wasn't happening.
