Enjoying the Best of St. Louis

Wednesday, October 16, 2018

The statue of Saint Louis, in front of the city's art museum which was built as part of the 1904 World's Fair.  There's actually some controversy about which Louis was Saint Louis.  Was it Louis IX, Louis XIV, or Louis XV?

Finally a sunny & warm day from start to finish!

We started our day with a delicious breakfast at Cafe Osage, a wonderful eclectic restaurant about 20 blocks from the Mississippi. Fully stuffed, we headed further downtown to the National Blues Museum which opened in 2016.  The museum does a great job explaining how the blues was born on the plantations of the South, and progressed to the Delta, St. Louis and Chicago forms that we know today.  The bands of the British Invasion were given due credit for introducing the blues to a wider, white audience in the 1960's  The museum is filled with photos and videos, as wells as series of interactive stations where you can write and make your own blues recording.  We loved it and would recommend it to anyone who loves rock n roll.

A Gibson ES-335, the preferred electric guitar from many bluesmen...this one belonged to Chuck Berry

Leaving the Blues Museum we drove over to nearby Busch Stadium.  Unlike Fenway, it's very quiet there now, but I had to stop by the official Cardinal store to pick up a new hat.

Our next stop was the art museum.  How fortunate I was as a teenager to be able to visit this museum anytime I wished.  Admission was, and still is, free!  Who needs Paris when you can see these masters?

Rodin

Degas

 Renoir

 Monet

 Van Gogh

Leaving the art museum around 3 pm, we headed for the University City section of St. Louis, now known as The Loop, where we had a wonderful barbecue lunch/dinner at Salt & Smoke, another one of our favorite places to eat, and similar to yesterday, we stopped at Ted Drewes for a frozen custard before retiring to our campground.