DAY 14: 7/6
We left Rochester, MN, at around 8 a.m. Our goal was to make it through Iowa to Kansas City, Missouri, with enough time to spend at the attraction Aliece wanted to see there before it closed at 4:30. What attraction might that be, you ask? Perhaps the Worlds of Fun amusement park or the Oceans of Fun water park? The Kansas City Zoo or the Kaleidoscope Children's Museum? Maybe we were going to learn about space exploration at the Challenger Learning Center or take a tour of the Harley-Davidson assembly plant? HA! While all these attractions are to be found in Kansas City, surely you know by now that Aliece would not have come to Kansas City for such mundane fare as that. No, the attraction Aliece wanted to see was none other than Leila's Hair Museum in the Kansas City suburb of Independence. (It was featured in Aliece's book Eccentric America, for those of you wondering how she would have heard of such a place.) Now, many of you are probably thinking that a hair museum would contain items relevant to the history of hairdressing. That's what I thought when Aliece first mentioned this to me. But you are, as I was, sorely mistaken. For you see, Leila's Hair Museum is not a museum of hairdressing. It is a museum of HAIR. Yes, hair that used to belong to real people. The hair had been made into various pieces of art, usually by a family member or friend after the original owner of the hair had passed away. The idea was that by having something with the person's hair in it, one could remember the person after they had died. Apparently this was popular in the Victorian era before they were able to have photographs to remember people by. There were hair necklaces, hair earrings, hair bracelets, and, most prevalent, hair wreaths. If you are thinking this all sounds a bit creepy, you are right. It was. Leila (pronounced Lee-eye-lah), who is still alive, is obsessed with these hair things. In the same building with the museum is a College of Cosmetology, and the headquarters for the Victorian Hairwork Society.
Anyway, we zipped through Iowa without incident and made it to Leila's in plenty of time. After viewing the museum, we headed over to our hotel. It was in the southeast quadrant of the city, which was kind of on the ghetto side. When I went to check in, our room was not yet ready, so we thought we'd kill some time by getting some gas and getting the car washed. This was much easier said than done. I went to a gas station nearby and got the gas without a problem. But then I pulled around back to the drive-through car wash, and the fun began. It had one of those machines where you select the kind of wash you want and then put your money in. I put my money in, and pulled into the car wash as the machine had instructed me. Only the car wash never began. So I went inside and informed them of this problem. The clerk told me it was out of order. I said fine and asked for my money back. For this, she had to get the manager. The manager came out, but he did not believe the machine had taken my money and told me to pull into the car wash, since it was supposed to be out of order. What proceeded was multiple tests of the car wash's viability, with poor Cinnamon (that's my car) as the guinea pig. The end result was that my car got half-washed and I got my money back. So, with a soap film-covered car, we headed back to the hotel. We decided that for dinner, we'd walk over to the Denny's next door. We had a great meal, with lots of entertainment. The manner of people that came in there was so diverse and so funny that we laughed most of the time. Then it was on to bed.
DAY 15: 7/7
Today was Sunday, and we had decided to visit a church that I had found on the web. I had chosen that church because it was in the same area as our hotel, and it was on the way to St. Louis, which was our end destination for that day.
We knew it was going to be interesting when we got to the church and saw only one or two other cars. We walked in, and a nice older gentleman named G.B. greeted us. He introduced us to a few other older gentlemen, one of which was named Paul and who we learned would be our teacher. They had three Sunday School classes there: children, which encompassed babies through 6th grade; youth, which encompassed 7th grade through age 30; and adults, which was everyone else. So Aliece and I both went to the youth class. There was one other student there, who happened to be Aliece's age. Paul informed us that he was 82 and had become a Christian when he was 70. He was a great guy who had some good stories to tell, and we enjoyed his funny tangents.
After the Sunday School class, we went into the worship center for the service. We counted about 25 people there total. We were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves and tell why we were there. Everyone was so excited to have us and just loved that we were on a road trip. They wanted to know what we had done, where we were headed, etc. They were overcome that I had found their church via the web. The older men especially kept looking at each other and saying, "The internet! Found our church on the internet! Can you believe it?" The best part of the service was when the pastor announced we were going to take communion and asked all the deacons to come to the front. It was all we could do to keep from laughing when every man in the church--all four of them--got up and walked to the front! (There was ONE guy who stayed seated, but he was a visitor.)
After the service was over, we said many good-byes to those warm and loving people, and headed on to St. Louis (after getting a REAL car wash).
DAY 16: 7/8
We slept in a little later today, and left to go see the Gateway Arch at about 11:00. (No, this was not featured in Eccentric America--this was a "normal" attraction that I wanted to see, and Aliece agreed that it was okay, because she kind of wanted to see it too. But rest assured that this was NOT one of the main reasons we went to St. Louis. You will see those later.) We decided that we would walk to the Arch, since it was only six or seven blocks away. On the way, we encountered a mall of sorts, so we stopped in there and got something to eat and drink for lunch. Also while walking to the Arch, we noticed that a lot of businesses in this area of downtown St. Louis were closed. It had kind of a deserted feeling. I think they are working on revitalizing the downtown area though, as we passed many areas of construction/renovation.
When we reached the Arch, we saw the remnants of their Independence Day celebration, which had run through the weekend, ending Sunday night. There were empty chairs, tents, and ice boxes--and LOTS of trash. There were workers there cleaning up.
We started walking toward the Arch, but got a little confused because we didn't see any buildings or anything around there. Yet on the website for the Arch it had mentioned all the things you could do there! Well, where were they? How were we supposed to get inside to go up the Arch? And where were all the people? Well, all of these questions were answered when we got to the area right at the foot of the Arch. There was a stairway leading down. Turns out everything (the four-stories tall IMAX theatre, museum, two gift shops, the entrance to the tram ride, and all the people) was underground BENEATH the Arch! =)
Our whole experience there was wonderful. We got our tickets for the tram ride, and then killed some time in the gift shops while waiting for our ride time. One of the shops there was a general store that was made to be like a general store in the 1870s. All the workers were dressed in period clothing, and the store only sold things that would've been sold in that time period. Apparently this is something that the National Park Service is testing out at some of their sites. We both really liked it.
We then went on our tram ride. While you're waiting in line, they route you through a mini-museum of sorts. One leg has the history of the Arch, and one leg has the history of St. Louis. You ride in these bucket-like things that take you up one side of the Arch. We did not dawdle at the top...we looked at all the different views, took some pictures, and headed back down. We then went to the IMAX theatre and saw the Lewis & Clark movie. The movie was fantastic--I have now become a Lewis & Clark fan. =) (For those of you with access to an IMAX theatre, the movie is called Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West. You should definitely go to see it if you get a chance.) After the movie, we spent some time in the Museum of Westward Expansion. This mainly focused on Lewis and Clark and the Indian nations they encountered on their great journey west.
After our time at the Arch, we walked to the Mississippi River and headed south towards our next destination: the Mural Mile. This is an approximately mile-long section of flood walls that are painted every year by graffiti artists from around the nation. This is something that is sponsored by the city--I guess they figured that if they let them paint here, they wouldn't paint on all the other buildings in the city. (From reading some articles about this in the local paper, it does not appear that it has helped any.) We found out from the information person at the Arch that it was about a ten-minute walk to the beginning of the Mural Mile. As we started getting further from the Arch, we noticed we were kind of getting away from populated areas. This is generally not a good thing. We therefore resolved that we would finish with enough time to get back to the Arch, and subsequently our hotel, before dark.
The murals along the wall were very well done, and much talent was evident. In some of the sections, you could see part of the painting from a previous year under the painting from this year. (I think they've been doing it for five or six years now.) We didn't make it down the whole length of the wall though, because it was very hot outside and we wanted to start heading back.
On our way back to the hotel, we wandered around a bit, trying to find a local restaurant for dinner, but everything was closed! We decided we were too tired to go out again, so we just ordered pizza in and crashed for the night (after I did my work for the day of course).
DAY 17: 7/9
Today we checked out of the hotel at about 8 a.m. and headed for the City Museum. The museum was only two blocks up and two over, but it took us forever to get there because so many streets were closed due to construction, and then you had all the one-way streets and half-streets to deal with as well. So there were a couple of times where we could literally see the museum, but could not get there! What should have taken ten minutes ended up taking about half an hour, but we finally made it.
It was very much worth it. This museum was FANTASTIC. It was the next biggest highlight of our trip after The House on the Rock. You will have to look at the pictures to fully appreciate the quirkiness of this place, but it was awesome. The whole deal is that it is a museum of the city. Not ABOUT the city--OF the city. Everything in all the "exhibits" came from some part of the city. The wall around the bathrooms was lined with old mouse cages from a local university. The stair rails leading up to the second floor contained old conveyor belt rollers from a factory in the city. The museum had invited local children to paint these, so every roller was different.
We learned very quickly upon arrival that this was a very "hands-on" place. On the first floor, there was a huge climbing and exploring area that extended to the second floor. We just stared at it for a minute, overcome and wondering where to start, when a museum worker good-naturedly told us we were not allowed to stand there and we needed to start climbing. He told us in no uncertain terms not to be shy and that we were not too old or too good to climb around in there. We just laughed and told him that was not the problem at all; we were just trying to decide where to start.
The climbing area included caves, tidal pools, trees, barrels, huge animals--a turtle, whale, and crab (but no penguins!)--and a conveyor belt slide, among other things. We climbed around there for about an hour, I would guess (and still Aliece did not find herself--not even with the giant turtle!). It was so much fun. Of course, there were some areas that were too small for us, but we still had a blast. If you climb to the top parts of the structure, that puts you on the second floor of the museum. It puts you out at a cafe-type place. (Also, when we were there, they were working on a big outdoor climbing area in front of the museum. I understand it is now open--that part looked like a lot of fun too. You can see pictures on my website.)
The second floor had a few arts-and-craft areas, including a shoe-lace factory and a glass studio. The third floor had the Everyday Circus, the St. Louis Architectural Museum, and the Museum of Mirth, Mystery, and Mayhem. The Everyday Circus is a cute little area with its own circus-like concession area, seating around a big ring, and performances daily. The museum staff performs some things, but children are also invited to come and "perform" themselves in the big ring. We watched a little of this and were delighted. The Architectural Museum had pieces of actual buildings in St. Louis. The pieces were mostly from older buildings that had been torn down. The plaques told where each piece was from, and there were information areas that taught about architecture in general. This was so fascinating to us--we spent about 45 minutes in this little section alone. The MMM Museum was quite a sight to behold. It had a self-proclaimed "Beatnik" atmosphere. The setting was like a European cafe, and there were many small exhibits in there, including a mini-fun house. (They even had a section for artwork dedicated to the corndog!) This museum also had its own concession area, and you could sit in the cafe and eat.
Also on the third floor were a few revolving exhibits. There was a section where you could build things with blocks and Legos, an art gallery that was currently featuring Celtic art, and an exhibit of the shoe industry in St. Louis. The shoe one was cool, because it was set up like a shoe shop with information on shoe-making in general and the St. Louis shoe industry in particular (Buster Brown is headquartered there) scattered in cool ways about the shop. There was also a wood-carving area on this floor. The museum has a wood-carver that comes in and does wood-carving presentations from time to time. Unfortunately, he was not in that day, but we did spot a nice turtle he had made. Aliece took a picture. (Again, no penguins--I began to think this museum was anti-penguin!)
We had a quick lunch at the cafe by the climbing area, then stopped by the gift shop on the way out and picked up some cool souvenirs. And to my delight, they had some penguin earrings right by the cash register where I was checking out, so the museum managed to redeem itself in this respect at the last possible minute.
We then headed out toward Eureka Springs, Arkansas. You will get to hear all about our adventures there in the next (and final) installment.