April 26, 2012 by Rae

The St Louis City Museum

The only way I can describe the St Louis City Museum is that it is a giant playground. It was apparently first created for adults, but now it is overrun by kids. The highlight is exploring all the nooks and crannies of various structures that let you climb, slide, and crawl. I had a blast but have to say that it would have been even better if there was an adults only time. There are a lot of structures that I would have liked to try but which I knew I couldn’t clear quickly enough for kids eager to get by. I was proven right when I descended a particularly slick structure, kids decided to come up, and one pushed me such that I got disoriented and stood up, right into a steel bar. I have a nice egg on the top of my head tonight. 😀

I’m going to put the rest of the bla bla bla into the gallery because this place is impossible to describe in words! I think that even the pictures don’t convey it really well. At $13 it is the most expensive St Louis attraction that I could find, but since everything else is so cheap or free and you could easily spend a whole day here I think it gives you a lot of bang for your buck. Wear long-sleeved pants you don’t mind getting dirty and closed-toed shoes. My sandals were a bit too slick in some areas.

entrance to the City Museum

cave tunnel to crawl through

or you can take stairs (you can get through a lot of this place without getting on your hands and knees, but you will need to do so to get the full experience!)

another narrow tunnel (writing says that kids must be accompanied by an adult)

turtles

octopus-like sculpture

entrance into a sea cave

This guy decided to come out and say hi by being vicious and hissing at me.

what the heck is that?!

turtle playing by himself

Big Fish is roaming around

Mr. Turtle takes off in a huff

Big Fish obviously does not find me interesting

Great quote by Jack Kerouac, “The only people for me are the MAD ones…”

this exhibit sounded cool but I think it was under repair

giant Sphinx

architecture museum

about the architecture museum (asks if a 100 year old courthouse should be demolished because it is not ADA)

there is an amazing vintage clothing store on the top floor! this is surely a St Louis hidden gem!

racks and racks and racks of vintage clothing; I didn’t see anything over $25!

stairs up to the vintage clothing shop

this is a wall of safety deposit boxes

entrance to the vault

the inner vault door

pretty arch way

deep in the heart of the cave system

I do not recommend turning around too quicky in the cave system unless you want to embarrass yourself by shrieking. I wasn’t expecting a giant dinosaur, okay?

I climbed up a super narrow staircase only to face this. I turned back. 🙂

looking up towards the top of the TEN STOREY SLIDE

climbing up to the top of the TEN STOREY SLIDE; it is a bunch of spiral staircases that get more wobbly the closer you get to the top…

four floors to go, *pant, pant*

Top of the TEN STOREY slide, looking down. I actually slid down it! Wheeeeee!

the outside portion looks like a mess of metal and get every inch of it is meant to be played on

Can you see the kid in the red shirt climbing up in front of the plane?

Can you see the kid in what looks like a giant slinky?

I didn’t break a sweat crossing this!

kids coming out of the giant slinky

Looking down to the ball pit

Close up of the slinky that leads to the plane. Most of the structures were accessible in a number of ways. I would end up getting very close to that plane.

I went over the walkway, but a smaller person could slide under it and crawl across!

I liked the random columns in the parking area.

There is a giant slinky going from the airplane to the top of the keep.

I bonked my head really well coming down this green structure.

bottom of the keep; the ‘stair risers’ would get higher and higher

partway up the keep, looking at the other plane

At the top of the keep. This slinky was short enough that had there not been a bunch of kids in the plane I would have gone over there.

I started up this structure, but it got really narrow and crowded.

it just keeps spiraling up

this is the lobby area where you buy your tickets

This sign announces the ‘circus’, which is a pretty good clown act. Be prepared to tip the clown as she is a volunteer.

April 26, 2012 by Rae

St Louis Almost Charms the Pants Off Me

I just got in from a full day spent touring St Louis, Mo.

Before I get into the good stuff, I have to get something off my chest. Missourians, why do you hate tourists so much? Driving in St Louis was horrible! I have driven in much bigger cities and never been honked at once. Just about every time I stopped at a red light, I was honked at if I didn’t hit the gas the second the light went green. I earned multiple honks for being cautious when turning left with tons of oncoming traffic bearing down on me. But my absolute favourite nasty habit was that every single time I would signal to change lanes, and I mean every single time, if there was a car behind me in the next lane, it would speed up when my turn signal came on, making it impossible for me to make the lane change and causing me to miss exits and turns. What a way to cause accidents, folks, by getting tourists really frazzled! The other thing that irked me was inconsistent signage to tourist-related things. For example, there is an inexpensive parking lot for visitors of the Arch. You get a few signs indicating which way to go, then good luck, you’re on your own! Even though there is a nice big RV lot, I would not go there without having first plotted out the route and having a navigator.

Okay, enough of that! When I wasn’t hopelessly lost with an equally confused GPS, I was having an amazing day! St Louis was on my bucket list because of its place in American expansion history, but I never really read up much on it. I had no idea that its touristy part would feel so quaint and old worldly. I love walkable cities and appreciated St Louis’ acres and acres of green spaces, walking paths, and easy to navigate city streets. If someone had told me that I would one day visit St Louis while traveling east in a modern day covered wagon, I would have laughed. It just goes to show that you need to leave room in your life plans for surprises.

This post is just generally about my day and I will shortly follow up with individual posts about each attraction, with most of the information given in the photo gallery for each post.

The first thing on the agenda was to find the right parking lot that is just $6 for the day. I’m not sure I found it, but I did find a lot that said $5 for the day that was reasonably close to the Arch, so that was good enough for me. I put a $5 bill in the machine and that got me two gold coins back. Once I was parked, I looked at them and realised they were US $1 coins, which I have only seen once, back in 2007, and which I had a dickens of a time getting people to accept. So, I had put $5 in and got $2 back in change. Why? I went back to the entrance and read the fine print on the sign. Early bird discount! I’d left early to be one of the first up the Arch before the throngs came and it paid off. 🙂

It took a bit of guesswork to find the Arch, but I finally did and was on the last uncrowded tour. I came down and went to the Museum of Westward Expansion, which is in the base of the Arch. It was still really early at that point, so I decided to do the City Museum. The gal at the information kiosk under the Arch said that the City Museum wasn’t walking distance, but it was only about 17 blocks, of which I’d have to walk three just to get back to my car.

By the time I was five blocks or so from the City Museum, it was just past 11:00 and I was hungry. Since the City Museum is interactive and promotes physical activity, I decided it would be a good idea to have lunch first. I was walking down Washington Avenue, a major thoroughfare, so I figured I’d come across a few restaurants. I did, and one of them was a sushi bar, Mizu. It was hot out, so I didn’t want anything too heavy, so this was perfect! The sushi was excellent; I was very impressed! $18 including the tip got me a miso soup that was included in my lunch combo of a tuna roll with four pieces of nigiri, and I added one piece octopus. The salmon sashimi was particularly memorable as it literally melted in my mouth, the way good sashimi should. Mizi Sushi Bar was definitely an expected surprise and I am so glad I gave it a try!

I then spent a couple of hours at the City Museum until the chaos of the children variety drove me out of there.

It was only about 2:00, so I ambled back to the car, and, after much trouble, made it to the Forest Park section of town to visit the Missouri Museum of History. I got out of there in about an hour and decided that I was done for the day. So, I set the GPS for home, was promptly squeezed out of the lane I needed to merge into, and found myself detouring through a section of St Louis I’m pretty sure tourists aren’t supposed to see. I would have taken pictures, but I was afraid to stop the car. 😀

More below:

first glimpse of the Arch

first good glimpse of the Arch

old worldly kind of feel

Eads bridge

the Arch

the Drury Inn was lovely

Mizi Sushi bar; excellent!

Next to Mizi, a pub was serving a beer and cheese soup. If I hadn’t been so full, I would have been tempted. 🙂

nice building seen from the corner of Washington and Tucker

This guy was cleaning the street, and I mean cleaning it. I’ve never seen someone apply cleanser and then scrub a city garbage can before! St Louis was very clean and I complimente this man on his hard work.

Illinois is across the river

final glimpse of the Arch

ice cream truck! haven’t seen one of those in ages!

walking down to the river

Eads bridge, which spans the Mississippi River

May 8, 2011 by Rae

Dinosaur Country!

Today was another road trip day with Gary and Jody! We headed into dinosaur country!!!!!!!

Before we could do that, though, there were some errands to be run in the Calgary area, including picking up a part for their trailer, and stopping at three RV dealerships to ask if I could leave some promotional cards for Full-Time RVing in Canada (all said yes, certainly).

Jody asked each dealership if they had toy hauler motorhomes and one had a Newmar Canyon Star. The salesman, who just happened to have been a Glendale Royal Classic seller back in the day, was really eager to get me into this rig! It was a nice rig, of course, being a Newmar, but it wouldn’t have worked for me since the garage was too small.

In between the dealerships, the Roving Deli opened for business. Gary had BBQed some really nice chicken breasts (among other things) last night, and they became very delicious sandwiches!

Mid-afternoon, we finally headed out to Drumheller. I’m saying finally only because we had left Lethbridge at 8:30! It ended up taking us about six and a half hours to do a drive that would have only taken an hour and a half or two as the crow flies. We could have gotten to Edmonton in that time! Ah, that’s what happens when RV enthusiasts start looking at rigs.

Shortly before Drumheller Jody turned to Horseshoe Canyon, an amazing place where the prairie literally drops away. It’s like my beloved Chasm, you wonder where the heck this hole comes from!

We arrived in Drumheller in very late afternoon, much too late see any attractions, but I made my list for when we come back later in the summer! The town is surprisingly seedy-looking, very rough and worn down. I imagine it looks better in the height of the tourist season when everything is open. We made a stop at the tourist info centre which is home to the biggest dinosaur in the world. We paid the $3 to climb the one hundred or so stairs to the top so we could see the view from the mouth.

After, I suggested we do the route to Wayne that takes you through eleven bridges in four miles (just over six kilometres). It’s a neat circuit since each bridge is different and the scenery is beautiful. There’s nothing after Wayne, though. This route is suitable for all but the largest RVs since the height clearances on the bridges is at least five metres (16.4 feet) and there is space to turn around tightly after the last one when the road widens and turns to dirt.

Next stop was the Star (coal) Mine Suspension Bridge. It’s not very high up over the river; I’ve actually jumped off of a taller bridge into a river. Needless to say, this one wasn’t hard for me to get across at all.

Following that, Jody took me to see the hoodoos, which are neat sandstone columns with a cap on them, all naturally sculpted of course.

We came back to the van and I put in an order at the deli for sandwich fixings without the bun since I’d overdosed on potato chips and I got a nice plate of chicken, cheese, and crudités. Aren’t I spoiled, what with a driver AND a personal chef? I should also add that in the morning I got a nice container of honeydew melon and my supper dessert was some of the best oranges I’ve had in ages. I only say this because Jody’s invitation to come today was about a paragraph long. They really don’t need to sell me on a road trip! 😀

It was getting really late by this point, with our at home ETA being 9PM, but there was still one more detour to do: Dinosaur Provincial Park so I could see the fabled Badlands! This is an area where more dinosaur remains have been found, and more species, than anywhere else in the world! It’s a World Heritage Site. Between that and Horseshoe Canyon I have to say that I continue to be astounded by the variety of landscapes in my country and how many treasures it holds. RVing is the only way to travel in this country and do it justice.

We descended into the campground and Jody followed a road that does a circuit behind it that really takes you out into the scenery, including a few places where a structure was built around dinosaur remains. What a great way to show off the fossils in situ. The campground is in a fantastic location; I’d love to spend a weekend there.

This was only a taste of dinosaur country and I can’t wait to explore it in greater depth! Thank you once again to my local guide and chef! 🙂

box is nearly her arm-span across

box is taller than her

contents! LOL!

delicious chicken sandwich from the Roving Deli

LOVE the cream cabinets!

looks like the Dempster Highway!

Horseshoe Canyon

entering Drumheller

giant dinosaur in Drumheller

view from the mouth of the dinosaur

inside the dinosaur

Me: “A dinosaur’s trying to eat me! Waah!” Jody: “You don’t look scared.”

Me: “Do I look scared now?”

inside the dinosaur

jailed dinosaur that looks like an alien

grain elevator

bridge no. 1

bridge no. 2

bridge no. 3

bridge no. 4

bridge no. 6

bridge no. 7

bridge no. 8

bridge no. 9

hotel and saloon straight out of the far west

bridge no. 10

bridge no. 11

grain elevator from the rear

bridge no. 1

suspension bridge

Star Mine suspension bridge

other side of the Star Mine suspension bridge

Star Mine suspension bridge

hoodoos

origin of the word hoodoo (it’s West African)

about how the hoodoos are formed

hoodoos

hoodoo country

Star coal mine

more hoodoos

dinner from the Roving Deli (I’d asked for the sandwich contents without bread; nice spread!)

approaching Dinosaur Provincial Park

deer near Dinosaur Provincial Park

dear near Dinosaur Provincial Park

entering Dinosaur Provincial Park

beautiful poem about Dinosaur Provincial Park

Dinosaur Provincial Park holds the world record for the most number of dinosaur remains uncovered

the Badlands

the Badlands as described by French explorers (coureurs de bois (forest runners))

the Badlands

World Heritage Site

the Badlands

descending into the Badlands to the campground, with some serviced RV spots!

the Badlands

deer on the Badlands

fossilized dinosaur remains where they were found

the Badlands

more dinosaur remains

a tiny RV shipped from Germany

September 22, 2010 by Rae

The Icefields Parkway

The Icefields Parkway is considered to be one of, if not the most, beautiful drives in the world. National Geographic considers it one of the drives of a lifetime. I did my homework on this road! I researched grades, RV-worthiness, facilities, etc. and knew exactly what I was getting into as I headed south from Jasper towards Banff.

Except for one section after the Columbia Icefield, there are no major grades on the parkway, just a lot of small steep sections that could fool you into complacency and wear down your brakes. One of the things I quickly established was that I would not be able to stop as much as I would have liked for two reasons:

1) many rest stops and attractions were close-ended and too small to turn around with a toad;
2) they were at the bottom of hills and would require too much brake jamming to stop at.

I stopped whenever I felt I could safely do so and took long breaks to give both the brakes and the engine a chance for a rest, too.

The parkway starts off lined with trees and rimmed with jagged snowy peaks and then gradually climbs up to the Columbia Icefield where you can see the Athabasca glacier. I stopped at the centre there to see the exhibits, but was not tempted by a pricey trip up the glacier.

The Icefield is located about halfway and the day had been going so, so well. I could have driven up the glacier to a view point, but decided the grade was too steep and that if I made it up, I probably wouldn’t make it down. I was playing it safe.

So, I finally let myself relax and that was that. I’m not sure if I did something wrong going down that big grade, but I got my fill of mountain passes for a lifetime.

My picture gallery ends just after the Icefield. My mind was not on photography after that. 🙁

This plaque about David Thompson is significant to me. It says that he died at Longueuil, which is practically my hometown. I did not know this. It just goes to show how French Canada goes out of its way to squash down the English side of Canadian history.

look at where those clouds are!

perfect place to stop for lunch!

I love how these folks were sitting on their chairs, enjoying their picnic!

approaching Columbia Ice Fields

Athabasca Glacier

I don’t think I’ve seen one of these in two years!

Do you want to know… where are the toilets. Seriously. Personally, that wasn’t my first question upon arriving at the Ice Fields Centre!

staircase up to the Ice Fields Centre

with a camera zoom like that, who needs binoculars?

the glacier recedes annually a distance that is roughly equal to the width of a post card!

this memo states that the exhibits haven’t been updated since 1996, but they are working on updates

this double-sided sign used to stand a the border between Banff & Jasper national parks

I made a note of this plaque because of the ‘water-melon snow algae’, which I saw a lot of on the Chilkoot

old Bombardier snow machine that took tourists up the glacier

a perfect example of why people have silly stereotypes about Canada

I almost missed this nice little addition to the display, seen from the floor above the information centre

this plaque reads that the edge of the glacier was right there in 1843. I’m guesstimating, but it looked to me like the glacier receded at least 1km since then

hardy glacial plants

one last attempt to capture the majesty I now had to flee…

June 30, 2010 by Rae

Mammoths, Atlatls, and Plane Crashes

I touched a real honest to goodness fossilized mammoth bone on Tuesday. It was about 25,000 years old. And that was after seeing a mostly real honest to goodness, fully reconstructed, mammoth skeleton. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but have you ever seen a mammoth skeleton???

So, ahem, one of the biggest and most visible attractions in Whitehorse, because it’s right off the Alaska Highway, is the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre. I had no idea what Beringia is/was and thought the place was a tourist trap, so I never really thought about visiting it. But after so much time in the Yukon I’d begun to hear things about the place and it started to work at me. So, after I got in from my Kluane Country jaunt, I decided to go find out just what was this thing called Beringia.

Beringia is a lost continent, a landmass that joined Siberia and present-day Alaska during the last ice age. It was a fertile grassland known as the ‘Mammoth Steppe’ in which giant animals roamed the land.

Stories of those days have been passed down through the ages to the present native peoples of the Yukon. One archaeologist studied those legends to see if there was any realistic basis to them and was lead to the confluence of the Old Crow and Porcupine rivers where there had been a legend of a giant monster slain on those banks. That legend is now a true story, as the skeleton of the ‘giant monster’ was found thanks to this orally passed down story–it was a woolly mammoth! Talk about myth coming to life!

After watching a fifteen minute movie about Beringia we were invited to step outside to try our hand using an atlatl, commonly known as a spear thrower. I’m quite good with a bow and arrow, so I was eager to try this other ancient weapon. I did three throws and the teacher informed me that I was one of the best he’d ever seen! While the others aimed to throw their spears as far as they could, with their first throw failing miserably, I focused on my technique and struck the same target three times, each time with more force. If I’d been hunting for the first time, I would have probably made a kill with at least one of those throws. It’s no wonder I didn’t last as a vegetarian–I’m a natural born hunter! 😀

My tour of Beringia filled me with such awe and wonder. Until yesterday afternoon, the Yukon was the Klondike. Anytime that happened before was of no interest. It was like discovering that an old friend has been hiding a wonderful secret from me.

The centre isn’t very big; there are a couple of exhibits outside and in, but it’s an excellent way to spend an hour or two. You can get a combo pass for the Transportation Museum next door for $9. That’s right, $9 can get you at least two hours of entertainment in excellent museums in Whitehorse. That’s less than the cost of a movie ticket!

The transportation museum was very good; with interesting displays. My favourites were those devoted to the Chilkoot Trail and to the Helen Klaben plane crash. She and a pilot crashed in the frigid Yukon wilderness in the 1960s and though badly wounded, lived to tell the tale. She wrote a book about the ordeal called Hey, I’m Alive, which was made into a movie.

between the Alaska Highway and the parking lot, a family of mammoths plays (dad shown)

this giant beaver apparently existed once upon a time. He was as tall as I am–5’6″!

The Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre

a mammoth skeleton

a giant sloth!

this statue represents the journey from life to death

(about the statue)

explanation of why glaciers are blue

explanation of ‘Beringia’

the displays at both Beringia and the Transporation Museum were excellent and very detailed

as I said, very detailed!

I had no idea that horses were RE-introduced to North America!

the Yukon Horse

Legends of Beringia

close up of the statue

touching a real mammoth fossil!

“please touch” is one of my favourite phrases

these are darts or spears

an atlatl

the dart rests against this rock and then you hold the two almost like chop sticks

plaque about the plane flying outside the Transporation Museum

explanation of the pivoting mount…

this plane always points into the wind

mural showing the different themes of the Yukon–native history, gold minining, the building of the Alaska Highway

kind of fuzzy, but this plaque says that it was on the site of the present day transportation museum that the US Army gave the Alaska Highway to Canada