St. Louis

After leaving Sedalia, I headed to St. Louis. I spent quite a bit of time visiting sites in St. Louis last year, so this year I went back to the downtown area and the arch, and then revisited the Anheiser Busch Brewery. But I did visit something new, Grants Farm. Here are a few pictures of my stay.

The Mississippi River downtown is still flooded, but not quite as bad as last year. You can check out last years photos by going to my archives for May 2010.

 

Here I am at the top of the arch.

These Clydesdales really like each other. They were in the paddock at the Anheiser-Busch Brewery.

One of the oldest buildings at the brewery, built in 1891.

Here we are at Grant's Farm. Owned by Anheiser Busch, today it is a reserve for many wild animals and has a petting zoo, but once it was the home of the Busch family. They also house 3 teams of Clydesdales at the farm.

It was hot and I was sure glad they had the misters on.

This bird got all our attention with his pretty crown.

I loved the haircut on this one.

Even the babies are big. The young are 3 feet tall and weigh 200 lbs when they are born. This one is about 2 months old.

This puts in perspective just how big these horses are.

Next door to Grant's Farm is the Grant home, now managed by the National Park Service, it was once the home to Ulysses S. Grant and his family. 

Grant's Farm originally was owned by Ulysses' wife's family and after Ulysses married into the family, lived here for a number of years. Many times when he was off battling in the civil war, or just assigned to a remote location, his wife and children would return here to live with her parents. Ulysses bought the farm from his in-laws. Eventually the farm was broken up and sold off in parcels, one such parcel being sold to the Busch family. This house though and the surrounding grounds were sold separately and lived in until 1977. At that time the National Park Service obtained the property and have restored it back to the way it was in the early to mid 1800s. And yes, the color you see is the color it was when Ulysses S. Grant lived here. They say his wife wanted it painted this color for it was fashion color of the year in Paris.

 

After leaving Grant's Farm we stopped at White Castle for some food.

Laurie found this birds nest on her ladder. It had traveled there at least 250 miles. Personally, I think if the bird had time to build this nest and lay its eggs, maybe you've been there too long.