Vacation – Day 3

We originally had no big plans for this day of our vacation.  With a long, hot day planned for Wednesday at Six Flags, and another one planned for Friday, when we figured to tour downtown and see a Cardinal game, Thursday was set aside to be more low key.  Among our options were just chilling by the pool (way too hot), checking out Laclede’s Landing (a bit too grown up for the kids), and touring historic St. Charles (a close second), but we settled on visiting Grant’s Farm.  I gotta say, we were really pleased with that choice.

When I first mentioned it as a possibility, Sandy thought it sounded fine for us adults, but not so great for our kids.  She presumed, as I did before looking it up, that it was just an historic old homestead of Ulysses S. Grant and nothing more, and that’s not something our kids, particularly our 8-year old, would have much patience for.  Of course, Grant’s Farm has a lot more, including a small zoo, a tram tour of the grounds, a museum of old wagons and carriages, and it’s the home of the Budweiser Clydesdales, which are simply magnificent animals.

We spent about six hours there, and didn’t regret any of it.  The tram ride takes you right past Grant’s famous, hand-built “Hardscrabble” cabin:

The guides provide you with great information about the cabin and the grounds, from its origins as part of the homestead of the Dent Family (Grant’s in-laws) to its purchase by the Busch Family, to its opening to the public in the 1950s.  The tram tour lasts about 10-15 minutes, after which it drops you off at the entrance to the zoo area.  The zoo had a nice collection of animals, including peacocks and chickens roaming the grounds, giant tortoises, lemurs, flamingos, foxes, bald eagles, kangaroos, parrots, and a pair of elephants.  There is a petting zoo where you can feed small goats, and they run shows with some of the animals performing tricks.  You can feed llamas and camels in another section, and pet some small horses and donkeys on your way into the “Bauernhof”, a replica of a 19th century German farmstead that includes stables, the carriage and wagon museum, and refreshments, including complimentary Anheuser-Busch products (read “Beer”) for the grown ups.  It’s all very quaint:

Now, it simply wouldn’t be a White Family vacation unless something memorably funny occurred.  On this day, that event happened in the Clydesdale barn, which we visited on the other side of the parking lot before heading to our car.  As expected, the horses were massive and gorgeous:

One of these beautiful creatures, whose name, sadly, was not on display, was actually sleeping right next to the entrance to his stall.  Since he was still standing up, we were able to reach in and touch him, stroke his sides, etc.  Sandy, being an extreme animal lover, was cooing to him and making all of the baby-talk sounds you would expect.  While she was doing this, the horse woke up, and he started stretching and yawning right next to us.  As he’d swing his head toward us, Sandy would stroke his muzzle and blow kisses at him.  After about a minute of this, the horse walked away toward the other side of the stall, at which point it became clear that he was, um, well…let’s just say he was obviously very pleased with the affection he had been receiving from my wife.  And I mean, very, VERY pleased.  So OBVIOUSLY pleased, in fact, that I felt the need to cover my daughter’s eyes, turn her around and walk her right out of the barn.

Needless to say, I gave Sandy a fair ration of crap about the incident.  And, of course, it quickly became part of family lore.  She is now known to many in our extended family as The Horse Whisperer.

Personally, I call her Flicka.

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On a largely unrelated note, we stayed at the Hilton Homewood Suites in Chesterfield, and we really enjoyed our stay. We had plenty of room, including a separate bedroom for the kids and a kitchenette with a full-sized fridge, there was a complimentary hot breakfast every morning, and it was located well for our plans. Plus the rate was really reasonable. Overall, I’d recommend it highly.

We had only one small problem while we were there. On our first day, we noticed that the room was really warm. It was a hot day, as it was the entire time we were there, so we didn’t think too much of it at first. We just figured the AC would take a while to cool the place off. Well, that didn’t happen. In fact, the temperature kept going up, and when it finally hit 80 in our suite, we called for maintenance. They arrived quickly and told us that a new unit would have to be installed. Okay, stuff happens, no problem. The guy said he’ be back in about 30 minutes, and we didn’t even have to be there if we had plans. We did have plans, so we left, secure in the knowledge that we’d have a cool room when we returned.

Well, we got back about 10:00 that night and immediately knew that our AC unit had been changed as planned, because the old AC unit was sitting in the hallway in front of our room. It wasn’t blocking the door and creating a fire hazard or anything, but it did seem odd that they wouldn’t have hauled it away. Whatever. We walked passed it, entered our room, found it suitably cool and didn’t have another room temperature problem the rest of our stay.

The next morning, the old AC unit was still sitting in the hallway. It remained there that afternoon and evening, too. In fact, the old, inoperable AC unit remained outside our room for the rest of our stay. After a while, we got kind of attached to it. The kids named it Crusty, and I took this photo as a keepsake:

Farewell Crusty. With any luck you’ll have a nice overhaul and be back on the job in a few days. Or you’ll continue to serve as hallway art for the Homewood Suites. Either way, we wish you well.