STL250 Finding St Louis

If you missed Francis's lecture at the library last night, he has uploaded his photo blends to his blog, South City Hoosier! Check it out!

STL250 Cakeway to the West, Part 4

As you may have gathered, I am obsessed with STL250 Cakes (and if you follow me on Facebook, you know I love to gripe about indoor cakes).

Kiener Plaza

America's Center and Edward Jones Dome

Missouri State Fire Fighters Memorial

In the center of Missouri at the junction of I-70 and Highway 54 is the Heart of Missouri Tourism Center (home of LEGO Faurot Field) and the Missouri State Firefighters Memorial.

From the sign pictured  at the top,

This site was established in memory of all who have served and all who have been lost in the fire service. The Walk of Honor is paved with bricks engraved with the names of individuals and organizations that make this memorial possible. The first four walls remember those who have passed after having served for more than ten years as a fire fighter in Missouri. The walls flanking the statue remember those having made the supreme sacrifice of giving their lives in the line of duty.

Each fire protection district in Missouri has their own section of memorial wall. The site is considered unfinished and funds are being raised to build a museum alongside the memorial. You can donate at the website.

Old Post Office - St Louis

I wish I could have told you about Local Harvest, but they abandoned me before I got around to posting this. For years I went into their Old Post Office location, and every time, I caught a glimpse of this amazing sculpture in the building's atrium. Every week I thought to myself that it would probably make a great post, but for some reason I never walked through the doors to get a better look.

This sculpture is Peace and Vigilance With Eagle, by Daniel Chester French. If that name sounds familiar to you, it might be because he went on to create the seated figure of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. This sculpture was originally on top of the building, but the marble was deteriorating in the elements, so it was moved inside in 1990, and a concrete replica is now outside. You can see it from the Olive St  side of the building.

The Old Post Office has a great little free museum about the history and construction of the building. It was designed shortly after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, when the area was flush with cash from supplying troops during the Civil War, and the architecture is fascinating, lavish, and inventive. I highly recommend stopping in sometime to check it out. If you're not in the St Louis area, you can read more about it on their website.

Memorials of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetary

We know a number of Boy Scouts who are involved in decorating the 190,000 graves of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery for Memorial Day, which reminded me that I never shared the pictures that Francis took a few months ago.

Travel Thursday: A Pirate Adventure at Walt Disney World

Today for Travel... Thursday (I originally posted it on a Tuesday and am posting an update on Thursday), I bring you a Walt Disney World vacation plan inspired by my Film Score Pandora Station, which is heavily slanted towards adventure movies, and Pirates of the Caribbean kept coming up over and over. I tried to convince Francis that we should have a pirate themed honeymoon, but we ended up going all high-falootin' at Animal Kingdom Lodge instead.

Stay at Caribbean Beach Resort, in the Pirate Story Rooms. Pirate rooms are awesome! They have two double beds with a pirate ship headboard, a pirate flag curtain to divide the bedroom from the vanity area (this is nice when you are sharing a room), night stands that look like barrels, an entertainment center that looks like a pile of crates, and lots of other pirate touches. The beds are AWESOME if you are fans of a firm mattress like we are. The pool at Caribbean Beach also has a Spanish fort and shipwreck theme.

STL250 Cakeway to the West, Part 3

As you may have noticed, I am obsessed with the cakes. You can check my progress on the STL250 Cakes tab above! This was our trip from St Louis up the Great River Road to Pere Marquette Lodge in Grafton, IL.

America's Central Port (did you know we have a Central Port?)

Lewis & Clark State Historic Site

Star Wars Galactic Breakfast

Blogging from a tablet while traveling did not go as planned. Frankly, the Blogger app is terrible. Now that I'm home, I've updated a post you may have seen a rough preview of last week: Galactic Breakfast at Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World!

One of my favorite things about planning Walt Disney World vacations is that just when you think you are "done" planning, something else comes along. This was announced a few weeks before our trip as an event for Star Wars Weekends and jammed the phone lines, but what most people didn't realize was that it started "May the Fourth" and is running EVERY DAY through Star Wars Weekends, even weekdays. So getting a reservation for May 5th was a cinch, even though I waited on hold for 45 minutes.

Ft. Leonard Wood Museums: The Military Police

In our final installment of the Fort Leonard Wood Museums, we cover the Military Police museum. When we were there, it seemed like either the museum was being expanded or wasn't finished. Regardless, there were still plenty of displays and artifacts on the same level as the Chemical and Engineering museums.

The military police have been around since the Revolutionary War, providing expertise in law enforcement, detainee operations and area security. The MP Corps trace their roots to Gen. George Washington requesting a provost marshall to deal with discipline issues within the ranks of the newly formed American military.