A Day With the Grandboys

Scott AFB, IL (Hi 72  Low 55) -- It was very cloudy and threatened to rain all day, but it never did. We picked up grandsons Kyle and Kendall at their house and headed for the St. Louis City Museum in downtown St. Louis. City "Museum" isn't a museum as much as it's a giant playground for kids of all ages. It's in a former shoe factory, and all the activities were constructed from bits, pieces, and parts of machinery from long closed factories in the St. Louis area. It occupies several floors of a 10-story building, including several attractions on the roof. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

This is another one of those places that's hard to describe to someone who hasn't been there. It's basically a whole lot of tunnels, overhead archways, caves, and other structures that you climb on, both outside the building and inside. The kids loved it!

This is the rooftop, where there's a ferris wheel, several different slides, and a nice view of St. Louis.

Kyle and Kendall are fearless on anything involving climbing, no fear of heights at all. Here they are scrambling up the inside of a domed roof, about 50 feet above the floor.

And here's some other crazy contraptions they maneuvered themselves up and/or across.

Grandma and the boys taking a break.

Kendall was particularly adventurous on this narrow passageway UNDER the walkway Jim was on (that's his feet), and all of this about 30 feet above the ground. He just slithered along like it was nothing!

I hope their mother doesn't see this blog. :)

Even Grandpa got brave. He kept up with the boys better than me.

But they still left him behind a lot.

Another break, this time for Grandpa and the boys.

Along with the play areas and climbing things, there were a few actual museum exhibits, including one with an old rotary wall phone. The boys had no idea how it worked. They would stick their finger in the number hole and kind of move the dial a little. We had to show them how it works. That was priceless!

We spent over four hours before the boys were finally tired enough to leave. The City Museum doesn't advertise very much, but it sure is a great place to take the family. We had a great time, and we certainly got our exercise for the day.

We brought the boys home with us to spend the night. I cooked them a spaghetti dinner and then we spent the evening watching TV. Jim took the opportunity to introduce the boys to the world of James Bond movies. He says he was 12 years old when he saw his first Bond movie (50 years ago... yikes!), the same age Kyle is now. Both boys seemed to enjoy it.

Tumbleweed is a little crowded tonight, but what a joy!