Not only did we contend with 95 degree weather during our visit to Busch Stadium. The Cardinals and Nationals game lasted 11 innings after they tied in the 9th and then in the 10th. So it was a long hot game, although this didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our two Cardinals fans (Dirck and Noah). One of the better deals: a free shuttle bus to the stadium from Duke’s, a sports bar in Soulard. Other area bars also offer shuttles. All you do is buy a drink (and only 2 of the 4 of us did). The bus was ready and waiting after the game. Amen! We saved time, money, and aggro.
We wandered around City Foundry, a post-industrial entertainment complex with a food hall, retail shops and entertainment options. The highlight was Golden Gems, a women-owned gift shop with attitude.
Near the World Museum of Chess (home of the world’s largest chess piece), we had brunch at chess-themed Kingsbury Diner. Then onto the imposing and impressive St. Louis Art Museum, in an elegant building built for the famous 1904 World’s Fair. It sits high on a hill overlooking a huge reflecting pool/lake with fountains, and the city fanning out beyond it.
The first thing encountered as we walked in the main entrance: five enormous and spectacular floor-to-ceiling paintings by German painter Anselm Kiefer commissioned by the museum and installed in 2025, inspired by his visit to the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers here and the Rhine from his native land. Rivers flow into and become the sea, hence the name of the installation: Becoming the sea.
We spent time in American Art with familiar regionalism artists from this part of the world including Thomas Hart Benton (of Kansas City) and John Steuart Curry (he painted the famous murals in the Kansas state house in Topeka).
TakeBetsywithyou 