Up in the Air

As you may have noticed, I hibernate in the winter. I hate cold and I look for any excuse to stay home. However! I will be blogging live from (hopefully) sunny Florida in a couple weeks, where I will be participating in the Walt Disney World Half Marathon! In the meantime, here's an article from the St Louis Post-Dispatch about the locations used for the new movie Up in the Air, which filmed here last year. I could do this myself, but why leave my warm house when Joe Williams already did it for me?

Clooney Was Here

So has anyone seen the movie yet? What did you think?

Holiday Lights!

No longer a contest! RØB (look at that, I learn new html every day) was the only one to submit pictures, so RØB wins by default! Yay RØB! You win the prize I have yet to determine! Here are a couple of his blinding finds:





Luckily I have had camera in hand on all my dog walks lately, AND I learned some new settings on my camera that improved my night time pictures. This first one is from my neighborhood, on a street called Marwinette. The whole street is big on Christmas lights, but this one took the cake since it also had music blaring.



The rest are from Candy Cane Lane, aka the 6500 block of Murdoch. This street takes Christmas seriously. I wonder if this is a "seller disclosure" if someone sells their house in July.









One block over from Candy Cane Lane:



All this time I was looking for the garish, tacky, overdone, blinding displays (which don't get me wrong, I love more than anything else about December,) and yet this is the one that stopped me in my tracks. This simple snowman is the one that truly captures the spirit of the eight pound, six ounce, newborn Baby Jesus (don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent.)

Anheuser Busch Brewery

I will say this just once in this post: Inbev. OK, now that we have that out of the way, can you believe I have lived in St Louis all my life and have been drinking Anheuser Busch products for nearly a decade and this past weekend was the first time I went on the brewery tour? The FREE brewery tour with the free beer? I know!



Usually I get my free beer with goats (at Grant's Farm, of course) but this year, the brewery is staying open late for just two Fridays in December so that you can check out their holiday light display while taking a walking tour of the plant. After hours just feels more special, even with 50 other people and tours departing on the half hour.



I was running late, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the exhibits in the tour center or in the gift shop, but I can tell you that both are expansive. I can also point out that custom AB carpet tile with the distinctive Budweiser "bowtie," because that's what I do. I can even tell you who makes it (Milliken.)



Onward to the stables! Some of the Clydesdales live here on the brewery property, in this fancypants stable that was built in 1885 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Sorry about the orbs in these photos. Stables are dusty (or are they HAUNTED?)



There are 6 "hitches" of Budweiser Clydesdales; 5 that travel around the country and one that resides at the brewery. There are two Clydesdale breeding farms, one at Grants Farm in St Louis and one in California.



Next up on the tour, the Mashing Room. This building is absolutely incredible. I think the thing I like the most about the AB headquarters is that they still make use of so many of the original buildings.





These hop vine chandeliers are from the 1904 World's Fair. If I remember right, they are 4 stories tall.







The copper grant is used by the brewmaster to check the wort for consistency and clarity as it comes out of the straining tank.



I love this tile mosaic that is on the first floor. They don't say anything about it on the tour, but I know there are also some original tile mosaics at Bevo Mill that they talk about if you can get a tour from the manager. All I remember is that they cost a fortune.

The next stop on the tour is the bottling plant. The next few pictures are from the lobby of the building.







You take several flights of escalators up, which feels like being in a department store, to the observation room above the plant.







The last stop on the tour is the hospitality room, where you get some pretzels and two free samples (about 6oz) of beer, or sodies for the kids. I highly recommend the Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale. This Friday, December 19th, from 6-9pm is your last chance to do the nighttime tour. You can find the regular hours for the brewery tour on the Budweiser Tours website.

Holiday Lights!

I'm still going through the pictures for this weekend's adventure, but I want to remind everyone that the deadline for holiday light submissions is December 19! I don't have a single picture yet except for this one that I took near my house! Send your pictures to beth@cravescavesandgraves.com.

Highway 40 is open!

If you live in St Louis, you know we will use any excuse for a party, and that is why we had a party yesterday to celebrate the east end of 40 reopening, and we had a party last year to celebrate the west half. Out-of-towners are baffled at our wild celebration of an interstate, so I can't let this historic event pass without mention.

It seems like just last week hundreds of us were camped out with blankets and beers on the side of Highway 40, waiting for them to blow up the Tamm Ave overpass. Here's the video my friend Tim took.



Listen to the size of the crowd! That is how hundreds of people chose to spend a Friday night, and we waited at least two hours. I love this town.

So that was about 18 months ago. All told, Highway 40/Interstate 64 was closed to thru traffic in St Louis for about 23 months. They started reopening the ramps last night at 9pm. DEAR KSDK.COM: I HAD TO REMOVE ALL OF YOUR VIDEOS FROM THIS PAGE BECAUSE YOU HOLD ONTO THE ANTIQUATED NOTION THAT AUTOPLAY ANYTHING IS ACCEPTABLE ON THE INTERNET. PLEASE JOIN THIS DECADE AND STOP ASSAULTING PEOPLE WITH AUTOPLAY. I heard one report on the 5 o'clock news last night while I was decorating the Christmas tree, and my favorite part was when one lady said that she told her kid that some day he could tell people that he walked on the highway before it was open. For a minute I thought I was listing to The News From Lake Wobegon. That is why we say St Louis is a really big small town.

Don't forget to send in your pictures of holiday light displays! I don't have a single entry yet! Send them to beth@cravescavesandgraves.com.

Have Yourself a Very Griswold Christmas

Do you have a house like this in your neighborhood? I want to see it! Send me the best light displays you come across this month! Deadline for submissions is December 19th. On December 20th I will post them here for people to vote for the best one, winner to be announced on Christmas. It doesn't have to be your house, and it doesn't even have to be in the St Louis area. I haven't figured out a prize yet, but if you have a blog or website, I will link to it. Send your submissions to beth@cravescavesandgraves.com.

Reasons #432576 and #567568 why I love St Louis

#432576. It can be 40 degrees one day and 70 the next, even in the middle of winter (it's not winter yet, but pull this up again in January to remind yourself that we will have one of those freakishly warm days soon.)

#567568. You can go fishing in the middle of the city.


Carondolet Lake Boat House, one of my favorite places in the St Louis

I did some adventuring this weekend but I have some research to do before I can turn it into something interesting. I hope everyone enjoyed their long holiday weekend!

Earthways Center

If ever there was a blog I wanted you pass around to all your friends, this is the one. I'm excited! You're going to learn so much! I'd been meaning to get to the Earthways Center for YEARS, but they are only open for public tours the 3rd Saturday and Sunday of the month and I just never made it happen until today.



The Earthways Center is a demonstration "green" home that is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Built in 1885, the house was abandoned in the 1960s and eventually taken over by Grand Center. The Botanical Garden gutted and remodeled the house in 1994 and has retrofitted it with solar and geothermal power, Energy Star appliances, CFL and LED lighting, and recycled or sustainable flooring (and that's just the short list.)



I'm going to jump around a bit between floors so you can see how the systems work together. Above are the solar panels on a pavilion in the back yard. The next picture is in the basement, where the collected energy is stored in batteries in that glass-topped case.





Here is the geothermal unit in the basement. Geothermal heating and cooling works by circulating a water-based solution through a buried loop system. Once you get a few feet down, ground temperature stays relatively constant. A geothermal unit practically eliminates your utility bills. Most of the cost is in the installation.



There is also a "regular" high-efficiency gas furnance that I didn't take a picture of. Above is both a conventional hot water heater and a tankless hot water heater. A tankless heater heats the water as you use it, rather than having a big storage tank. I've heard that tankless water heaters take forever to recover the cost of the unit and installation, so if anyone reading this actually has one, I would love to hear what you think of it.



Back outside! Here is their little potting shed and composting area. First, the pavilion. This was built to demonstrate the "living roof." They couldn't install it on the actual house because the pitch of the roof is too steep. This is meant for flat roofs. As many of you St Louis city-dwellers know, a flat roof is usually black tar, and black roofs and asphalt are the reason for the heat island effect. Installing a living roof, or even painting your roof white, helps reflect some of this trapped heat.



The living roof can be trays, or bags, of soil, and provides an excellent layer of insulation, improves drainage, and creates green space in areas that would normally have little to none. Here is the view from the second floor:





Back inside! Here is the green kitchen. The cabinets and appliances are from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, showing that you don't always have to buy new things made out of recycled materials. You can make old stuff new-to-you and support Habitat for Humanity at the same time!



The floor in the kitchen is cork, made from the bark of the cork tree. The bark just keeps growing, which makes cork a sustainable floor. You guys know I'm a nerd about the floors (in fact, my company installed the Forbo Marmoleum on the stairs.) The real point of this picture, though, is the Can O Worms Composter for kitchen composting.



As long as we're in the kitchen, here's a view of the insulation. You will see in a couple pictures that the window sills are fairly deep. This is because brick houses were not usually built with much insulation, so when they gutted the house, they built the walls out with room for cellulose (shredded newspaper!) insulation.



This is super cool. It's a little sink that you install on the back of your toilet. When you flush, the water runs through that spigot BEFORE filling the tank, so your "gray" water from washing your hands or brushing your teeth is the water that fills the tank to flush the toilet. Apparently these are not available in the US yet, but it looks super easy to install (a simple tube connected to a standard flush mechanism) and demand begets supply! Start demanding!



Back out in the hallway, here we have a cool story. This original woodwork survived vandalism and thievery because it was painting baby blue and pink at some point. It was restored to its natural finish with a citrus based paint stripper.



I just liked this little "stained glass" lampshade made out of slices of geodes.



In what was formerly the dining room, there are displays of energy saving lighting options, and an "energy bike" to demonstrate how much more energy it takes to power an incandescent bulb vs a compact fluorescent bulb.



This is a model of a solar tube, the number one thing I covet for my house. When I get a new roof I want to put one in the kitchen and maybe one in the bathroom. You know flipping CFLs on and off cuts down on their lifespan, which makes them impractical for bathrooms. Plus, ladies, you know it's best to apply makeup in natural light!



This is a model of how an energy audit works. For more information, go to the Earthways Home Performance With EnergyStar web page.



One last thing! This is, in my opinion, one of the coolest things that MoBot does. In the spring, they set up collection points for empty nursery pots, hanging baskets, and cell packs. They recycle those pots into "plastic lumber" which are then available for purchase. The raised beds in the picture are made from the kits that the Garden sells. The only downside is that they are pretty expensive, but they outlast railroad ties and the like, and they don't leach chemicals into your soil.



So there you have it. The Earthways Center is located at 3617 Grandel Square. As I said at the beginning, public tours are on the 3rd Saturday and Sunday of the month at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, and 2pm. Cost is $3 (free if you are a member of the Missouri Botanical Garden.) The center is also available for private tours and field trips, and they have classes throughout the year. See the website for the event calendar.

St Matthew Cemetery

This is another cemetery that is a couple blocks away from my house. St Matthew Cemetery was established in 1877 at Bates and Morgan Ford. The chapel was added in 1887. It is operated by St Matthew United Church of Christ at Potomac and Jefferson.



St Matthew has very few trees compared to Concordia, the one behind my house, but I really like trees in cemeteries so I seem to gravitate to those areas. I was surprised to find out recently that this is not the prime real estate I thought it was. I would love for my final resting place to be under a tree, but apparently I'm in the minority.







This stopped me in my tracks. The Missouri Blind Girls home was established in 1866 by nine blind young women. It is known today as the Mary Culver Home, presently located in Kirkwood. The name was changed in 1993 "to better reflect the mature residents," so I take it that today it is more of a retirement community.



You guys know I love the ceramic photos. This one is amazing. Mamma passed away in 1915 and Dad in 1945 and these tiles are still absolutely beautiful.







I think I have said this before, but I always find it so touching when I see a very old grave that is still tended to, particularly when it's a baby.









There are a lot of monuments and markers that are in sad shape in St Matthew. I always find myself wondering if there is any way to repair these, or if they would need to be replaced. It makes me want to start an "Adopt a Tombstone" project, like one would adopt a stretch of highway.





When I see markers like this, I always wish there was some way to find out what the story is. A marker made of anything other than stone is unusual in this area. Whatever the case, there should be more of them. I dig it.





Behind the scenes fact: I always say these cemetery posts will be "quick" and then I spend an hour trying to figure out if this Ringling is related to THE Ringlings. I'm afraid I can't spend the rest of my life on this, so I have no conclusive answer for you. I didn't even notice the name until I was sorting pictures on the computer, so for all I know that says "Bingling." But I admit that I almost ran down the street in the dark to find out for sure. This blog is a labor of love, I tell you.

One final note: Someone was asking me in the last week about cemeteries in St Louis and small family plots or burials outside of large cemeteries. Hopefully it's someone who reads this blog regularly. Here is the list of St Louis area cemeteries that I mentioned. Even if you are not that person, the list is pretty interesting!