St. Louis Cardinals Opening Day 2014

"Skip work for opening day" is item number one on St. Louis Magazine's "101 Things Every St. Louisan Must Do". I didn't need much convincing for this one.

Opening Day is quite the event in St. Louis, and people go downtown to celebrate even if they don't have tickets to the game. Unfortunately it was pretty rainy on this particular day, so a lot of the extra stuff (concerts and so forth) that happens outside the stadium was muted.

I was worried about sitting in the rain for an entire baseball game, so I wore this doofy disposable poncho. It pretty much did its job.

There was some interesting pageantry before the game. First all of the shiny trophy hardware was brought out. I was initially confused because the Cardinals have won the World Series 11 times but there were only 4 trophies carried out. This is because the Commissioner's Trophy wasn't even a thing until 1967. Before then the winning team got a handful of wooden nickels. Fun fact!

Next a bunch of the greats from Cardinals' Christmas past were trotted out, each riding their own car around the field. The only two I recognized were Ozzie Smith and Tony La Russa. Ozzie got his own little highlight reel played on the jumbotron. I felt bad for the other players and for myself. It would have been awesome if they had all gotten their own little video. Then at least I would get to know who the heck all of them are, and I would get to see some awesome old timey Cards footage.

The field was wet so the little worker ants ran around and spread out dry dirt. Because the field was wet the Budweiser clydesdales didn't do their little parade around the field. I thought that was lame.

Luckily for us we are poor and had really bad seats. So bad, in fact, that were were under the awning that sits on top of the stadium. That kept the rain off of our heads quite nicely. Our tickets were really expensive and awful, so I struck back against the man by smuggling in booze. Take that man!

Ultimately I thought it was fun but not worth the crazy price we paid to attend. I'm glad I did it once!

Hanging Out With the Pink Sisters

Our quest to complete St. Louis Magazine's "101 Things Every St. Louisan Must Do" continues. This time we headed to the north side to "listen to the Pink Sisters at Mount Grace Chapel".

Sister Act this place was not. Yes there was singing, but it was even more somber than the church norm. There was a bit of theater exhibited when a giant red curtain seemingly drew itself back to reveal a giant golden Eucharist holder cross thing.

So the full name of the place is Mount Grace Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. I didn't realize until afterwards that at least one of the nuns is in the chapel praying to the Eucharist 24 hours a day.

A large fence separated the pinkies from the rest. Was the fence to keep them in or us out? It's a mystery.

Festivals, Festivals

This was one of those Saturdays where we started adventuring fairly early, and it was so jam packed full of awesome that by the end of the day it was hard to remember the beginning.

We started off at Washington University's 24th annual Pow Wow, which was an interesting little event. A gymnasium was full of costumed dancers bouncing around, some American Indian style food, and lots of people selling turquoise and moccasins and that type of crap. We poked our heads in, looked around, and the hit the road.

I would have tried the food, but the line was practically out the door.

We headed deep into the North Side to get some interesting food for lunch. While I was reading about the wondrous St. Paul sandwich that we had at a northern chop suey joint last month, I picked up the trail of another weird sandwich. The St. Paul was featured in the PBS documentary Sandwiches That You Will Like, and so was "pig ears and snouts" at the famous C & K Barbecue. Let's do it.

C & K Barbecue is located inside what was once a gas station, bring to mind my visit to Kansas City's lauded gas station bbq joint Oklahoma Joe's. The interior was similar to the chop suey place: like a bullet proof glass fortress. I guess robberies are a problem. Famous restaurants with god-awful interiors often have the best food, though, so I let it slide.

Lydia got some really excellent pulled pork sandwich, and I got a pig ear sandwich. I asked if they would put snouts and ears on the same slice of bread but the answer was negatory. Sissies. I had just assumed that the ears would be fried. Pretty much a handfull of grass from your front lawn would taste great if fried correctly so I didn't see much danger with the ears. But they weren't fried, they were boiled. They were like slimy mushroom caps. The ears still had the holes in them from where the pig's ear name tag once dangled. One bite of that business was enough. Lydia shared her pulled pork.

The final St. Louis sandwich challenge on the list: brain sandwich at Ferguson's Pub. I'll just tell Lydia we are going out to get ice cream.

The final leg of our festival trip was Missouri Tartan Day in St. Charles, Missouri. We met up with friends Zeke, Angela, and their countless children, Seago, and Margaret. The highlight of the day was the food. We dined on meat pies and haggis and chips and washed it down with Irn Bru.

I've always heard haggis is awful, but this was pretty great. I don't know if maybe this was a toned down version for American consumption, but I would definitely order it again.

Award for most awesome goes to the people who had a tractor motor set up to make ice cream.

Fiddler with cowboy hat and kilt? St. Charles says "yes please".

One unexpected part of the festival was a whole lane of tents that were devoted to and staffed by decedents of Scottish clans, complete with family tartan clothing. There were maps and books everywhere, and several were trying to sign up new converts. I don't think I've encountered another ethnic group that is as serious about their heritage. One little thing that I learned is that the "Mac" in Scottish names means "son of", referring to their clan. So "Macdonald" is the Anglicized version of "Son of Dòmhnall". It was a good day.

Indiana Day 2, Indy and Roadside Wonders

Our first stop on our second day in Indiana was Indianapolis. We had wanted to have a nice lunch there, but on this particular unlucky day there was an NCAA Elite Eight match between Kentucky and Michigan in town. The restaurant we had been hoping to go to was swamped, and parking was pretty unfortunate considering it was a Sunday afternoon. We took a little walk, peeked at the capitol, and then hit the road towards home.

There was a sign near the capitol about the National Road which I found interesting:

"The National Road is a true American icon, conceived by George Washington, authorized by Thomas Jefferson, and traveled by Abraham Lincoln.

In 1806 construction of the National Road was approved by the US Congress to open the western interior of a young nation to commerce and settlement. It was America's first federally funded interstate highway, extending from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling on the Ohio River. The road was so important that Congress authorized its extension into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in 1824 to link the capitals of the new states. The road reached Indiana in 1827."

We were driving through little Danville about 30 minutes out of town and stumbled upon the Mayberry Cafe, devoted to the timely Andy Griffith Show. There was show memorabilia all over the walls, the servers wore deputy badges, and a replica of the show's police car sat out front. I whistled the theme song for Lydia about 10 times during the drive home just so she'd know how catchy it is.

Lydia had a fire lit in her soul when she laid eyes on the majesty of Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site earlier this month. Since then it's always, "when can we see another covered bridge" or "why isn't this bridge covered?!". We really had no choice but to visit Parke County, Indiana, the "Covered Bridge Capital of the World".

I was pleasantly surprised by how organized Parke County's tourism effort was. There was a visitor center that had brochures available outside despite being closed for the day. There were maybe three different driving tours that would take you though the back country to see the different covered bridges. There were enough signs that we could have almost done the whole tour without the map we picked up. It was well done.

Phillips Bridge. According to the county website, "Also known as Arabia Bridge. Little Arabia was an area on top of the hill bordered by Big Pond, Leatherwood, and Big Raccoon Creeks. The name may have come from Syrian Moslem immigrants who settled nearby or as a term of derision for residents who were thought of as little more than cattle thieves."

Melcher Bridge. This gif really captures the drama of covered bridges.

We swung by the world's largest wind chime in Casey, IL.

Directly across from the wind chime was this sign indicating that the world's largest rocking chair would be coming soon, cruelly snatching victory out of the hands of Fanning, MO.

Indiana, Land of Architecture and Ice Cream

It's getting to the point where I've been everywhere that a 5 hour drive from St. Louis on the interstate can get you. One of the few remaining major cities on that shrinking list was Indianapolis, so that, friends, is where we went.

The hotel situation in Indianapolis proper was on the expensive side, so we made Columbus, Indiana our headquarters. This made sense especially because many of our 1000 places to see before you die in the USA and Canada destinations were in the southern part of the state.

The morning after our arrival we set out to explore Columbus. Columbus is a city of around 45,000 people, and I would say that it has more cool architecture per inhabitant than any place I've ever been. Local rich guy J. Irwin Miller decided that he wanted to live in a city that looked awesome all over, so he set up a program where he would pay for the architectural fees if the city agreed to choose from a list of architects that he selected when it came time to build things. As a result, many of the churches, banks, schools, and so forth are way more excellent than they have any right to be. The city has a couple structures done by Eero Saarinen, who also designed the St. Louis Arch.

After some car touring we stopped at Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor. I would say that this place alone was worth the drive to Indiana. It opened in 1900, and they have done such a fine job keeping the place authentic that it felt like a time machine must have been involved.

According to an IN.Gov page here Zaharakos features:

"two Mexican onyx soda fountains from the 1904 World’s Fair, a Tiffany-style stained-glass and marble lamp from 1905 and a 1908 self-playing Welte Orchestrion (think of a self-playing piano on a much grander scale)."

Even the ubiquitous plastic straw had been eschewed in favor of a thick paper old-timey one. This has to be the first time I've used a paper straw. I liked them so much that I considered buying some in the gift shop. Then I remembered I'm a cheapskate. I had a Gom Sandwich, which was a cross between a grilled cheese and a sloppy joe. Ridiculously good.

Somehow I didn't get a picture of the orchestrion but it was very impressive.

Wikipedia had a picture of a similar one. It was like a mechanical orchestra. It had a paper roll with music on it that the machine could read like a self playing piano. The invention of radio and the electric record player in the 1920s removed the need for these giant machines.

There were several similar (but smaller) machines in a side room that appeared to be coin operated. So cool!

I was also impressed with the fancy soda fountain equipment on display.

On the way to Madison, IN we stopped for a sign indicating an antique store. It was located in a ghost strip mall that was quite spooky.

We arrived at the Lanier Mansion State Historic Site about a half an hour too late, and it was closed. Ho hum.

Lastly we drove all the way out to Story, IN, which was really in the middle of nowhere. We decided that there must not be a heck of a lot going on in the state of Indiana if this little place got it's own entry in the Book. Well, we marked it off our list anyway!