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.)