meet me in st. louis

We went for Paul Burch and stayed for the Cardinals.

For quite a while I have been trying to convince JFA that St. Louis is a worthwhile and interesting town. This past weekend I finally succeeded. He came along for my Paul Burch odyssey and made the whole weekend much more fun.

Paul Burch is such a favorite and if I couldn’t be in Nashville a few weekends ago for the CD release party, or last week for the anniversary celebration, I’m glad I could attend this great show at Off-Broadway. He played “Isolde,” and while I’m used to hearing it as something lush and melancholy, he did a spare version with harmonica that was sharper, more barbed, even Dylanesque.

That would have made the whole excursion worthwhile right there, but the rest of the weekend was even better. We stayed at a new hotel that did a nice job of acknowledging how its site figured into St. Louis history. All the art in the hotel featured old posters and pictures from the Forest Park Highlands, an amusement park that burned down in 1963.

I chose the hotel, just south of Forest Park along Interstate 64, so I could take a long walk since the half-marathon is nearly here. Saturday morning found us on a long trek through Forest Park and into Central West End. The sights were beautiful and the weather was gorgeous. We sneaked into the end of a wedding at the Basilica and saw the recessional, followed by bells. The whole walk was wonderful, and we marveled at how great Forest Park is, flush with natural wonders and incredible museums.

We decided that AMAZEum would be the stupidest name ever for a museum and we sincerely hope the new museum in our town is not called that.

Then we went and hung out for a while in University City, still one of the greatest blocks in the Midwest. We ate at Fitz’s, where they make and bottle their own root beer and other sodas. We found the Delmar-Loop light-rail station and had a very easy trek to and from the new Busch Stadium.

Saturday night’s contest was my second ballgame in three days. While there are many interesting comparisons between U.S. Cellular Field and the new Busch, the St. Louis park has a distinguishing feature: you can send a text message that will be displayed on the scoreboard (subject to editing / rejection).

JFA is a great travel companion for many reasons, not the last of which is that he’s hilarious. So I looked up to see this special message on the Busch Stadium scoreboard:

[my real name] is AMAZEum!

Best $2.99 he's ever spent.