Lewis and Clark used St. Louis as the springboard for their trip to the West Coast in 1804. Pete and I used the city as a springboard for two cross country trips. Kansas City, on the opposite end of the state, is also a worthy destination in its own right.
ST. LOUIS
I most recently visited St. Louis for a two-day business in June 2017.
St. Louis is a first class city. I hesitate to use world class because the size and "scope" of the city leave a little to desire - it's no New York, Hong Kong, or Tokyo, in both a positive and negative sense. There's a sense of pride, particularly with the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team (our offices lunch room had St. Louis decals on the wall), but also a natural friendliness with people you meet along the way. From the shuttle bus driver to the cashiers to co-workers there's a friendliness that borders on some sort of naivety about the rest of the world. St. Louisans seem like a pretty relaxed and polite crowd. I didn't see anyone tailgating on the freeways - even during rush hour with cars barely crawling, you couldn't call it bumper to bumper traffic because the drivers left a car space or two between them.
A sprawling freeway system that radiates West from the Gateway Arch is one of St. Louis's most defining features. St. Louis suburbia sprawls to the North, West, and South with several ring interstates connecting the towns. Judging by the traffic there's a lot of people who live in the suburbs and commute in to St. Louis destinations.
Freeways aside, St. Louis's defining feature is the Gateway Arch which dominates an otherwise nondescript skyline. The Arch was my first stop on my first cross country trip - fitting because this is the approximate site of where Lewis and Clark launched their cross country trip. To celebrate Lewis and Clark there is a Westward Expansion Museum at the base of the St. Louis Arch. The top of the Arch provides great views of the surrounding St. Louis area, however, its the ride to the top, in a tight capsule, that I enjoyed the most. It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic.
St. Louis has two dueling BBQ places - Bogart's and Pappy's - and your selection may be made for you if you are looking for dinner. Bogart's closes at 4 Monday through Thursday so if you are here for work during the week, that means Pappy's. Bogart's is across the street from Soulard Farmer's Market, one of the oldest markets in the US. Fortunately in St. Louis when one BBQ door closes, another opens. A quick Google search later and we were on our way to Pappy's. Pulling in to Pappy's I could tell this place has the shack style feel of a good BBQ place. One bite of the thinly sliced brisket and I had no second thoughts of Bogart's.
The Anheuser-Busch brewery is a short drive south of Soulard's. I went on a tour of the brewery fifteen years ago and I remember the brewery being a massive facility and the tour guide was proud of the beechwood aging process. There was a large gift shop and since I was a college student at the time and interested in accumulating as much beer paraphernalia as I could, I bought way more things than I needed. 15 years later those items are still stacked in a storage bin in my basement.
Some locals believe that Budweiser over charges St. Louisans because they can count on their brand loyalty. Fortunately there are other drinking options. Most notably Schlafly's. When Schlafly's opened in 1991 they were the first brewery to open in St. Louis since prohibition. Schlafly's has several locations. Their original location (I believe) is a taproom at 21st and Locust, just west of the Arch. Schlafly's has another location in Maplewood, which I kind of regret not checking out because it's in more of a hipster zone. Bar Napoli is a fancy bar in Clayton.
Kaldi Coffee is to St. Louis coffee what Schlafly's is to St. Louis beer. It's a dominant local brand with multiple locations throughout St. Louis. On my OK to Good coffee tasting scale, Kaldi falls on the very good scale. The coffee was a light roast, with strong flavor and no bitter after taste. The Kaldi location in Kirkwood provides a glimpse of the St. Louis small town life and has a good breakfast burrito.
Beer? Check. Coffee? Check. That leaves gooey butter cake. Gooey Butter Cake is an accidental St. Louis creation. Gooey Butter Cake is a flour, sugar, egg, and butter concoction created accidentally by a baker who used a butter spread instead of actual butter. The cake didn't rise and the result was a dense, sweet treat. There are plenty of bakeries around town that have their cake variation. Park Avenue is a famous bakery (I wasn't blown away by their cookie dough flavor) and their original location in Lafayette Square provides another glimpse of a nice, upscale, vintage St. Louis neighborhood.
One of the next neighborhoods over from Lafayette Square is The Hill, St. Louis's historical Italian neighborhood. Yogi Berra grew up here and while he's moved on, the neighborhood still retains its old school Italian charm. There's a number of restaurants that provide the Italians staples but the real, only in St. Louis dish to try is toasted raviolis. A co-worker recommended the highly rated Charlie Gotto's and mentioned the Missouri Bakery has the best gooey butter cake in St. Louis.
Rounding out my visit to St. Louis was a stop at Blueberry Hill in Delmar Loop on the way back to the airport. Blueberry Hill was a popular spot for Chuck Berry performances late in the St. Louis natives career. There's a statue of him across the street. I ate toasted raviolis at Blueberry Hill - they were decent. They were meat raviolis and I have to imagine that cheese raviolis would have a bit more gooeyness.
After dinner it was an easy, traffic-free ride back to the airport.
A few videos from a 2003 Cross Country Trip:
I most recently visited St. Louis for a two-day business in June 2017.
St. Louis is a first class city. I hesitate to use world class because the size and "scope" of the city leave a little to desire - it's no New York, Hong Kong, or Tokyo, in both a positive and negative sense. There's a sense of pride, particularly with the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team (our offices lunch room had St. Louis decals on the wall), but also a natural friendliness with people you meet along the way. From the shuttle bus driver to the cashiers to co-workers there's a friendliness that borders on some sort of naivety about the rest of the world. St. Louisans seem like a pretty relaxed and polite crowd. I didn't see anyone tailgating on the freeways - even during rush hour with cars barely crawling, you couldn't call it bumper to bumper traffic because the drivers left a car space or two between them.
A sprawling freeway system that radiates West from the Gateway Arch is one of St. Louis's most defining features. St. Louis suburbia sprawls to the North, West, and South with several ring interstates connecting the towns. Judging by the traffic there's a lot of people who live in the suburbs and commute in to St. Louis destinations.
Freeways aside, St. Louis's defining feature is the Gateway Arch which dominates an otherwise nondescript skyline. The Arch was my first stop on my first cross country trip - fitting because this is the approximate site of where Lewis and Clark launched their cross country trip. To celebrate Lewis and Clark there is a Westward Expansion Museum at the base of the St. Louis Arch. The top of the Arch provides great views of the surrounding St. Louis area, however, its the ride to the top, in a tight capsule, that I enjoyed the most. It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic.
St. Louis has two dueling BBQ places - Bogart's and Pappy's - and your selection may be made for you if you are looking for dinner. Bogart's closes at 4 Monday through Thursday so if you are here for work during the week, that means Pappy's. Bogart's is across the street from Soulard Farmer's Market, one of the oldest markets in the US. Fortunately in St. Louis when one BBQ door closes, another opens. A quick Google search later and we were on our way to Pappy's. Pulling in to Pappy's I could tell this place has the shack style feel of a good BBQ place. One bite of the thinly sliced brisket and I had no second thoughts of Bogart's.
The Anheuser-Busch brewery is a short drive south of Soulard's. I went on a tour of the brewery fifteen years ago and I remember the brewery being a massive facility and the tour guide was proud of the beechwood aging process. There was a large gift shop and since I was a college student at the time and interested in accumulating as much beer paraphernalia as I could, I bought way more things than I needed. 15 years later those items are still stacked in a storage bin in my basement.
Some locals believe that Budweiser over charges St. Louisans because they can count on their brand loyalty. Fortunately there are other drinking options. Most notably Schlafly's. When Schlafly's opened in 1991 they were the first brewery to open in St. Louis since prohibition. Schlafly's has several locations. Their original location (I believe) is a taproom at 21st and Locust, just west of the Arch. Schlafly's has another location in Maplewood, which I kind of regret not checking out because it's in more of a hipster zone. Bar Napoli is a fancy bar in Clayton.
Kaldi Coffee is to St. Louis coffee what Schlafly's is to St. Louis beer. It's a dominant local brand with multiple locations throughout St. Louis. On my OK to Good coffee tasting scale, Kaldi falls on the very good scale. The coffee was a light roast, with strong flavor and no bitter after taste. The Kaldi location in Kirkwood provides a glimpse of the St. Louis small town life and has a good breakfast burrito.
Beer? Check. Coffee? Check. That leaves gooey butter cake. Gooey Butter Cake is an accidental St. Louis creation. Gooey Butter Cake is a flour, sugar, egg, and butter concoction created accidentally by a baker who used a butter spread instead of actual butter. The cake didn't rise and the result was a dense, sweet treat. There are plenty of bakeries around town that have their cake variation. Park Avenue is a famous bakery (I wasn't blown away by their cookie dough flavor) and their original location in Lafayette Square provides another glimpse of a nice, upscale, vintage St. Louis neighborhood.
One of the next neighborhoods over from Lafayette Square is The Hill, St. Louis's historical Italian neighborhood. Yogi Berra grew up here and while he's moved on, the neighborhood still retains its old school Italian charm. There's a number of restaurants that provide the Italians staples but the real, only in St. Louis dish to try is toasted raviolis. A co-worker recommended the highly rated Charlie Gotto's and mentioned the Missouri Bakery has the best gooey butter cake in St. Louis.
Rounding out my visit to St. Louis was a stop at Blueberry Hill in Delmar Loop on the way back to the airport. Blueberry Hill was a popular spot for Chuck Berry performances late in the St. Louis natives career. There's a statue of him across the street. I ate toasted raviolis at Blueberry Hill - they were decent. They were meat raviolis and I have to imagine that cheese raviolis would have a bit more gooeyness.
After dinner it was an easy, traffic-free ride back to the airport.
A few videos from a 2003 Cross Country Trip:
|
|
And the obligatory St. Louis Arch photos:
HANNIBAL
Hannibal could probably survive on its own as a quaint Mississippi River town that recalls an American past when rivers acted as the major highways across the country. It could. The town is that nice. But the real reason people come here...the reason we took US-36 across Missouri (which was a fun drive) instead of I-70 is because Hannibal is the childhood home of Mark Twain. It's the town where Mark Twain heard "Mark. Twain." It's the town that served as the inspiration for the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Twain's childhood house still stands next to a white fence that Tom Sawyer tricked friends into painting.
Hannibal could probably survive on its own as a quaint Mississippi River town that recalls an American past when rivers acted as the major highways across the country. It could. The town is that nice. But the real reason people come here...the reason we took US-36 across Missouri (which was a fun drive) instead of I-70 is because Hannibal is the childhood home of Mark Twain. It's the town where Mark Twain heard "Mark. Twain." It's the town that served as the inspiration for the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Twain's childhood house still stands next to a white fence that Tom Sawyer tricked friends into painting.
The homestead site runs along a closed brick street with Becky Thatcher's house (center) and Mark Twain's father's law office (right) across the street.
There's a statue of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on the north end of town. I had to get at least a photo of the Mississippi that inspired some of Mark Twain's writing.
As you can tell, this is a nice small town, whether or not it has Mark Twain's homestead as a site.