Those of you who have been around since the very beginning of Craves, Caves, and Graves know that I started it on Livejournal because it was a blogging site that I was already familiar with and I wanted to make sure I would/could keep up with this before I devoted time/money/energy to learning a lot of new stuff. Thank you for all your comments and feedback this past year! I'm still having fun and still planning adventures, so it's time to move to a more user-friendly format. So without further ado, I give you:

Craves, Caves, and Graves DOT COM!

Please update your bookmarks accordingly! All future updates will be posted there.

If you ARE a Livejournal user and you want to continue to watch this blog on your Friends page, you can add this feed: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/cavesngraves/

A couple weeks ago we went to Faust Park because I have never been to see the carousel, plus there was a craft fair going on that weekend. They also have a historic village, and you know how I love a historic village. Everyone please welcome my special guest photographer Keith, who just got a fancy new digital SLR that beats the pants off my weenie little Nikon Coolpix.



The carousel is from the Forest Park Highlands amusement park and was built in the 1920s. It was the only thing left standing after the Highlands burned down in 1963.



In 1987 the St Louis County Parks built a climate-controlled building for the carousel, which also has a party room. Open carousel for your wedding! How cool is that?



It's also one of the fastest carousels in the world, and it only costs $1 to ride!



A beautifully detailed Stinson Organ accompanies the carousel.


( June is bustin' out all over, All over the meadow and the hill! )

I hear there's a new Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter book being released next Tuesday. If you're in the St Louis area, there is a book release party with Laurell at the St Louis County Library Central Branch at 6pm on June 1. The book is not officially released until June 2, but you can buy a copy a day early at Subterranean Books in the Delmar Loop.



Even before I started CC&G, I promised out of town Anita Blake fans that I would take some pictures of St Louis landmarks just for them. So here is a tour of "The District," aka Blood Square. I'm not naming any businesses/streets because that would infringe on the parallel universe, and there's no fun in that!



For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Anita Blake books are a series about a vampire hunter/zombie animator who lives in the St Louis area. The books used to be about preturnatural crime fighting and vampires and werewolves and fun fantasy stuff.



I won't get into what they have devolved into, but let's just say this is no Twilight and you probably don't want your teenagers reading them. *ahem* But we won't go there. Let's just enjoy the scenery.



( Pimps beware. I was bringing the Master as backup. It was like carrying a thermonuclear device to kill ants. Overkill has always been a specialty of mine. ~Anita Blake )

First Bevo Mill, now my beloved Wax Museum!



The windows are all papered up! I managed to get a glimpse inside and it's practically empty, and there's a notice of public hearing for a sidewalk cafe license posted on the door.

According to the Riverfront Times and the Laclede's Landing Merchants Association, the museum is closed for renovations. But that sidewalk cafe application has me nervous. If you know anything, please comment! We have to find Charlie!

St Louisans are used to seeing the Gateway Arch all the time so they may question its inclusion in this blog. "Everyone knows about the Arch!" you're saying. So when was the last time you went? 5 years ago? 10? Kindergarten?


Jesse, for scale

Look at it from an out-of-towner's perspective: there's a 630' tall (and equally wide) stainless steel Arch in our town, and you can ride in a tiny capsule to the top. That's pretty weird.



AND! There are animatronics! and taxidermy!





No? How about the Arch Effect? I screen capped this radar image last week!



Now that we've covered the obligatory conspiracy theory, let's move on. There has been some confusion about this so a clarification: When you see the quote in parenthesis, click it! There's more to this story!

(  One evidence which the Inds give for believing this place to be the residence of some unusial Sperits is that they frequently discover a large assemblage of Birds about this Mound. ~William Clark (I find his creative spelling endlessly entertaining.) )

When I was a kid we would always beg my Aunt Carole to stop for pretzels and she always said, "Do you see a sink anywhere around that man? We do not buy food off the street!"

I hate to defame the pretzel man, but that's one of my favorite stories. I'm sure there's a bottle of Purel in one of those boxes.

This was taken at the corner of River Des Peres and Gravois on a Sunday afternoon. You can also buy Gus' Pretzels at their store, where I'm sure they have a sink.

This museum is amazing. It's an old two story school house that is absolutely chock full of old stuff that Hermann residents have donated. I can't just see people cleaning out Granny's basement and saying, "What should we do with these ancient typewriters? We can't throw them away. Let's donate them to the museum!"



Full disclosure: this entry is totally haphazard. If you have actually been, or visit in the future, you will notice that I'm jumping all over the place from floor to floor and room to room. I have no excuse, nor is it a judgement on the museum's organization, because the folks here have done a fine job. It's just such a crazy mishmash of stuff and I felt like stirring it up.


Take away, take away, take away this ball and chain!


My source tells me this could be a Chandler and Price letterpress


arrowheads, collected by high school students if I recall correctly


weaving loom restored by the ladies craft group

( Betrunkene und Kinder sagen die Wahrheit. )

Still working on the German School Museum, but I would be remiss if I posted about this event after the fact. For you St Louisans, the Greater St Louis Book Fair is this weekend. It's so big it's held in the Macy's parking garage at West County Mall. Admission is $10 on Thursday for first pick, but Friday through Sunday is free admission, and Sunday is half-price day!

I took so many pictures in Hermann a couple weeks ago that I'm going to have to break this into two blogs. This week, Hermann Wurstfest, which is always the fourth weekend of March. We started out our day at the Whole Hog Sausage Breakfast. You can read about the Wursty goodness over at Pandora's Lunchbox.



Breakfast is held at the Hermann Firehouse, where they have a room with a bunch of cool old pumpers.



After breakfast we headed over to the Stone Hill Pavilion, where the day's festivities were just getting started. There was a accordion player playing the fanciest dern accordion I ever done saw. It was DIGITAL!



There was a sausage making demonstration by Ruff Acres Farm with sausage seasoning for sale. I've never heard of waterfowl sausage but they make a seasoning for it, along with deer and pork sausage.



Maybe someone can tell me about this fountain outside the Stone Hill Pavilion. Honest to God, I saw a lady dip her fingers and cross herself like it was holy water. We made up a Davinci Code-esque story about Hermann because the fountain had a metal A emblem on it, and later we got red A hand stamps for admittance to the festival events.



( Jeder war ein grosser Krieger / Hielten sich fuer Captain Kirk / Es gab ein grosses Feuerwerk )

Last weekend we got together a pinball caravan to drive 30 miles north to South Roxana, IL in search of CP Pinball Parties. Thanks to Rob for the tip in a recent CC&G comment. Sorry you couldn't make it out there!



So you know I had to get a picture of Elvis pinball, but Theater of Magic ended up being one of my favorite games. There are about 60 games (including a couple upright arcade games) spread over two buildings. I was told by several people that this is hugely important: they have not one, but TWO Medieval Madness games. I didn't realize it was such a rare and expensive game, but after playing it about 20 times that night I understood their awe.



I didn't get a chance to speak with the owner myself, but I saw him around all evening. Several people told me that he stopped by when they were playing to give them tips and tricks. He definitely has a passion for pinball!



We didn't get there until 7 and I think nearly everyone said something early on about missing that extra hour. Let me just tell you, that much pinball is rough on your body. Four hours later, everyone was bleary eyed and complaining about sore backs, thumbs, and forearms. On Monday I still couldn't grip a pen at work. It was totally worth it.



One more thing I wanted to mention: They have The Who's Tommy the Pinball Wizard and Tim showed me how to play it with the blinders. That could possibly be the most frustrating and challenging thing I've ever done in my life.

They are open to the public two weekends a month from 6pm-12am, admission is $10, and all the machines are set to free play. All the information can be found at their website, cppinball.com. This is probably the most fun you can have for $10 within 45 miles of St Louis (I can say that because Meramec Caverns costs $15.)

Oh, South Broadway Wrestling, I missed you! Back in the day we used to go every single month. This past weekend was the first time I'd been in at least a year. The important things remain the same, but the building has had a makeover since I was last there.



I've been trying to get started on this entry all week but I can't find the words to do it justice. This is one of those ones that you can't fully appreciate until you go. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.









( The Rock's gonna take your monkey ass down to the corner of Know Your Role Boulevard and Jabroni Drive, and check you into the Smackdown Hotel! )

I live down the street from a windmill.



I was sitting at the light on my way to SBAC Wrestling and scrambled for my camera when I saw the bride and groom come out onto the balcony. One of these days I will do a Craves post on Bevo Mill.

SBAC Wrestling will be my next post, but I have about 100 pictures to wade through and edit. In the meantime, check out my friend Robbie's new blog, Pandora's Lunchbox. Craves, Caves, & Graves and Pandora's Lunchbox will be doing some co-blogging adventures in the future!

UPDATE, 3/20/09: Bevo Mill Closes

So much for that Bevo Mill post! Hopefully this is just temporary, as the restaurant has changed hands many times over the years.

So maybe I'm cheating, but I didn't get out much in February. Take a virtual vacation with these weird internet museums and I'll get back on the road in the next couple weeks.

showhistory.com - Everything you've ever wanted to know about freaks and geeks. I love sideshow history and this is the most comprehensive site I've ever seen. Well done!

Ronald Dupont's Squished Penny Collection - I would like to see his whole collection as thumbnails on one page with links to bigger pictures, because I think the internet museums are really more user friendly that way, but y'all know how I love the squished pennies. I have my own collection so I had to include this one.

International Arcade Museum - What this site lacks in user-friendly browsing, it makes up for in sheer volume. Boy how I wish the Coin-Op Museum in St Louis was still open. Maybe some day I'll open my own.

Skytopia Fruit Museum - This one is definitely weird. This person does detailed reviews of fruits, complete with rankings and awards. Oddly enough, it's far more engrossing than it sounds.

Sancho's Museum of Culinary Disasters - I could spend hours and hours and hours on this site just laughing at the ridiculous cook book pictures. PLUS there are links to other great sites like The Gallery Of Regrettable Food (an old favorite of mine,) Haunted Road Trips, and Beauty Tips of the Past. The design of the site is not so great, but the content is A+.

Official Bad Art Museum of Art (OBAMA) - This is not an internet-only museum - there is an actual cafe in Seattle that houses the museum. However, they have an excellent online gallery of the bad art, so you can virtually visit.

Frank's Vinyl Museum - Whew, I was starting to think there was no such thing as a weird internet museum with a decent website. Take a hint from this guy, all you other weird internet museums! It's 2009, you don't have to use Geocities anymore! Look for "Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on the Moog," "Polka Disco," and "The Ballad of Jim and Tammy." Wow.

UglyDress.com - They call it an archive of bad bridesmaid dresses, I call it a museum. Ladies, I have already spent an hour on this site, laughing out loud like a lunatic. You must check out the "Ugly Weddings" tab. Warning: some of their banner ads are of an adult nature.

Nothing makes me more excited than finding out there is something in St Louis I'd never heard of. I haven't seen and done everything there is to see and do around town, but I've heard about most of it. Some weekends I just want to find something fresh, and Roadsideamerica.com delivered once again with the Newman Money Museum.



I was aware of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (worth a visit all by itself if you like modern art) on the campus of Washington University, but I had no idea there was this tiny museum devoted to the history of currency in the basement. We'll get to that. The real reason Keith and I went to this museum was to check out the not-technically-animatronic Ben Franklin.



The reason his face looks funky in the above picture is because it is projected in 3D from behind! It's projected onto what looks like an unfinished Halloween mask and is called a SpokesMannequin.



Other than the otherworldly glow, I gotta say, it's pretty impressive. Look at how it looks like his face changes shape, even though the shell it is projected onto doesn't move at all.



The SpokesMannequin is on a motion detector, so every time the museum door opens (infrequently, let me tell you) he starts up with his spiel... well, I guess he talks about his involvement in currency, but we were way too interested in how it worked to pay attention to what it was saying.

( An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. ~Benjamin Franklin )

Here's one I'll never be able to capture in photos, so I'll just tell you to go.

Friday Night Flashlights

At 11pm on Friday nights
City Museum will drop the lights and you will be able to explore with flashlights only. Admissions after 10pm will receive a free flash light or feel free to bring your own. Flashlights will also be sold in City Museum gift shop.

http://citymuseum.org/cmspecialevents.html

I caught some red foxes playing in Concordia Cemetery this morning. Red Tailed Hawks hunt there, too, but I've never been lucky enough to get a photo.

Hooray! My favorite St Louis Science Center exhibit is out of storage! You may remember the medical exhibit from the old Planitarium side. I think it was part of the tunnel from the Planetarium to the new building. When they remodeled the Planetarium and the tunnel, the medical exhibit disappeared.


It's my love of quackery and furniture all in one! What I wouldn't do for those apothecary cabinets!


Iron Lung


Glass Eyes. This was my favorite even when I was young. On this weekend I was dashing through the exhibit calling to my friends, "Have you seen the eyeballs? Are they here?"


Straightjacket above, skull with trepanation hole below.

( For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius. ~Dr Frederick Frankenstein )

Holidays are over, back to our regularly scheduled updates! I'm sorry to tell you all this, but I'm a huge nerd when it comes to historic houses and there will probably be quite a few of them posted this winter. Last week I went to visit the Eugene Field House and St Louis Toy Museum on the last weekend of the exhibit Not That Cuddly: Misfit Toys.



I thought the house was more of a self-guided tour, but it's actually a guided tour, even if there's just one tour guide and just one visitor. So in a way, I got a private tour! This house was the boyhood home of the poet Eugene Field, and is a toy museum because he collected toys throughout his life. Sadly, most of his pieces were lost in a warehouse fire.



When you walk in, there's a long hallway with stairs to the second and third floors. To the right are the front parlor and back parlor. The front parlor had a big Christmas tree decorated in period style with the candles on the tips, but of course they are not allowed to light them.



It's always interesting to me to hear how historic houses that are open for tours deal with modern fire codes. There is also a huge set of pocket doors between the front and back parlor that are not even functional because closing them would be against the fire code.



It's a little awkward to take notes on a one person tour, so I can't give many details on specific pieces. However, I can tell you that the carpet was woven in Europe and it took something like 6 months for them to install it. This winter, the house will be closed in January and February so that they can install a new oilcloth floor in the foyer. That sounds blah, but "oilcloth" refers to canvas painted with oil paint, a precursor to linoleum, so I'm sure it's going to be lovely.

( Don't fancy I exaggerate- I got my news from the Chinese plate! )

We're doing something a little different this week. I have been super busy, and the weather has been gross, so I haven't been able to do much adventuring. A lot of people have suggested over-the-top Christmas light displays I should check out, and believe me, I intend to. I just don't think I will have time to take pictures of all of them and post it before Christmas. Instead, I give you the crazy one in my neighborhood, and I want YOU to comment with some crazy ones from YOUR neighborhood. If you don't know how to post a picture or don't have photo hosting, email it to cravescavesandgraves@gmail.com and I will add it to this post.



South St Louis loves inflatable decorations. I cannot tell you how many houses have 2 and 3 of these things on postage stamp lawns.

I was going to do a post about the entire theater, but after a few pictures I was reminded that my little point-and-shoot takes terrible pictures of vast, dimly lit spaces. I never get a good blog post from a theater. Luckily, the backstage area is a post in and of itself.



The Fox Theater does its Fabulous Tours on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Admission is $5, and you must look at the calendar in advance if you want to go backstage. They do not take tours backstage (or even into the auditorium in some cases) if a show is in progress or loading in. Sometimes load-in takes up to two weeks before the run starts, so call ahead.



What is so special about backstage at the Fox? Decades worth of murals from touring companies and musicians. I had heard about this, but had no idea of the magnitude. Hall after hall and dressing room after dressing room is covered, from basic autographs to 3D murals. This entry will have dozens of pictures, and there were a ton that I missed because I thought we'd double back.







( There's no business like show business! )