Visiting St. Louis

On my recent trip to St. Louis to visit my family, I felt like a real tourist as we toured the Fox Theatre and the St. Lous Cathedral. I will add a disclaimer that I only had my camera phone for pictures and the quality is pretty horrible. I hope you will be able to see and experience the beauty of these places (especially if you've never been there ... or even if you have) despite the blurry pictures. :)


On Wednesday night, we went to the Zoo where they were having a wine tasting event with live bands. There were TONS of people there for the "free" wine. I went to hang out with my parents, see the animals, and hear the music. There weren't many animals out, but we did see the bears. The band was only so-so. The highlight was the free ride on the zoo carousel with mom and Paul. They just don't build them like that anymore. It was really fun.



On Thursday, we did some real touristing. We toured the Fox theatre in downtown St. Louis. For those of you who aren't from there, the Fox was built in 1929 as a silent movie theatre, but quickly converted to movies with sound. The Wurlitzer organ in the pictures is original to the theatre and was installed to provide the "soundtrack" to the silent movies. Stan Kann (seen a few times on the Johnny Carson show) is also original to the theatre, kind of. :) He's been playing the organ there since the 1950s. He's quite amazing and very spry for a man in his mid-80s. It was a really neat tour, and one I highly recommend.



After the Fox, we went to the St. Louis Cathedral. PLEASE maximize this slide show and really take it all in. It's so unbelievably beautiful in there. Every picture, every inch of the ceilings are MOSAICS! That's right: little pieces of broken glass, some with gold leaf, all come together to make these beautiful pictures. I only wish more of my pictures would have turned out.

We finished up my trip with some shopping, and just plain ole relaxing vacationing. It was a great trip, and so good to be back home.