St. Louis – Riveted

The Shaved Duck, Cathedral Basilica, Soulard (St. Louis, MO)

Laura Domela — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000

This afternoon's exploration brought to you by a late lunch at The Shaved Duck.

We walked in the front door and the guy at the bar said "You just made it. The kitchen stops serving in 4 minutes."

Whew! We found this place on Yelp and it had great reviews and sounded like a cool neighborhood joint that we should try.

We ordered half a rack of baby back ribs with a side of jalapeno creamed corn, and a pulled pork flatbread (small, thin-crusted pizza-like dealie…with apple, crispy bacon, and Vermont white cheddar) and a couple of iced teas. The ribs were perfect and in our opinion, a little bit better than Pappy's the day before, perhaps. (Controversial, I know.) The pulled pork flatbread was delicious! They also had a couple of sauces on the table: a Carolina mustard sauce (good, fine), a Kentucky bourbon BBQ sauce (really good), and a mango ginger BBQ sauce (incredible!!). Neither of us is easily swayed from the traditional spicy BBQ sauce, but this one did it.

Their dinner menu looks fabulous as well.

As were were finishing up we noticed a poster and some photos from Diners Drive-Ins and Dives…apparently they were JUST on it and the episode aired for the first time on October 29th. Cool! We'll have to see that one!

Our next stop was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. I'd read about the incredible mosaic interior but nothing I'd read prepared me for just how shocking and stunningly beautiful the interior of this Basilica was.

I (again) took far too many photos, but wow, wow, wow…just look at this place:

Just about everything you see (besides the columns on the left, and the pews, and the floor) is mosaic. There are 41.5 million pieces of glass in over 7,000 colors. The shiny yellow/gold pieces are glass glazed with several kinds gold leaf which results in a very rich, reflective golden surface. Fantastic.

LOOK at these colors!!

Stunning, isn't it? Downstairs there's a Mosaic Museum that details the building of the Basilica and the installation of the mosaic work, which began in 1912 and was completed in 1988. That's 86 years!

This is a piece of detail they have in the Mosaic Museum:

Anyway. Awesome.

We left the Basilica and headed over to explore the Soulard area and the historic Soulard Farmers Market. The market isn't open on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday (bummer, because today's Tuesday) but it was cool to see even though we didn't get to fill our bags with local produce. This market has apparently been around since 1797 (!!!)

The Soulard area is pretty interesting: picturesque, filled with cool little bars, galleries, and restaurants, and much of the architecture dates back to the mid- to late-19th century.

A couple of random photos from our exploration today: The Grove District sign

The Eat-Rite Diner. Hmm. I kinda don't think so. Might be Good, but probably is not Rite.

St. Louis, Missouri (we crammed a lot in today)

Laura Domela — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:19:05 +0000

**And by today, I mean about 4 hours.

We got up early, did a bunch of work, moved from the Casino Queen parking lot over to our new spot (5 minutes down the river) at Cahokia RV Parque (on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River). Then we did a bunch more work before heading out to explore St. Louis a bit.

We started at Pappy's Smokehose for some lunch. Whoa. We got there just after noon and there was about a 30 minute line that had increased to about an hour by the time we were moving from the hallway to the interior of the restaurant.

This place is the real deal. Loud blues blasting from huge ceiling speakers, red and white vinyl tablecloths, a display of 100s of different bottles of barbeque sauces running the length of one long wall…and the food was delicious. Kevin thinks the ribs he makes are maybe the closest to St. Louis style ribs, and I agree. The sides were great as well. Between the two sides we each got we tried green beans, sweet potato fries, fried corn on the cob, and barbeque beans. Anyway, yum. Then…we went walking.

We headed down to the waterfront to check out the arch. It's pretty cool and we thought we might go take the trip up to the top of it.

The arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, and built between 1963-65. (Tons of great information and history here if you want to read more about it.)

Up at the very top in the middle are these tiny windows. That's where you get to go when you go to the top.

You ride up in these trippy little pod modules that hold 5 people and the inside of each one looks like this:

It takes about 4 minutes to get to the top, and I think it would be tough if you had any kind of claustrophobia, but it's super cool being up at the top of the arch and the ride is a little like the transition in some video game: you can see through the door/window into the interior of the arch…winding stairways, metal interior structural things, fire extinguishers…it's pretty strange, actually, that you can even get up into this thing the way you can.

Once at the top you're in an area with those little windows that looks like this:

630 feet from the ground:

With some amazing views (this one is my favorite):

I love that you can see the base of each side of the arch in this shot:

Down in the lobby/museum area they've got some cool exhibits. This one told about the builders and architects.

This is a photo in the lobby that advertises the "making of" film that we didn't see (the next one didn't start for an hour) but it looks from this image like it would be super interesting:

After the arch we walked around the park and the waterfront a bit. This is the American Queen, a Victorian steamboat that does cruises along the Mississippi River. You can book a room for 7-12 night trips…sounds kinda fun, actually!

The steamboat's smokestacks:

This is the base of the Eads Bridge that connects St. Louis, Missouri with East St. Louis, Illinois.

Eads Bridge with arch (and pigeons):

I took far too many photos of this Union Light and Electric Building, but it was so cool!

Okay that's all.

Great corner detail on the United States Court House building (built in 1935):

Love the facade of this building:

And check out this architecture and detail on the St. Francis Xavier College Church:

There are so many cool old buildings in St. Louis (and so much more to see, really). Just before we decided to head home, we checked out a bit of the industrial area down by the river just south of the Poplar Street bridge:

I love the residue of the previously adjacent building on this wall:

On the way home, this sign we passed made me laugh:

Mom loves you. Love, mom.

Here's our new spot:

The park has Wi-Fi, but the main good connection is apparently down and the others aren't good enough for us to use successfully, so we're using our Verizon data card. Solid AT&T cell service, full hookups, laundry, and fabulous location (about 5 minutes from downtown St. Louis).

Casino Queen – St. Louis, Missouri

Laura Domela — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:01:06 +0000

Last night we got in late and parked overnight at the Casino Queen just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis. Looks like they have a really nice RV Park, but it doesn't re-open until Spring 2013.

It was windy and rainy and dark when we got in last night, but this morning we woke up to clear skies and a view of the arch from our gravel spot.

Now we're headed over to an actual campground for a night or two and to explore a little of St. Louis. It's cool and crisp and a little windy but so far a gorgeous day.