I promise I’m trying to get this blog back up to speed. Just having too much fun I guess….I left family in St. Louis on Saturday morning, it was really a good experience connecting with family I hadn’t seen in years and getting to know them better. There is value in having others to commiserate about family dynamics with; positive or negative.
I wound up downtown at the City Museum, perhaps one of the most fantastical places I’ve been in years. It was wildly crowded with overly exuberant children, and I honestly can’t blame them. Even at 28 the place put a huge smile on my face. I haven’t encountered many places that make your imagination soar in the same way. From a five story tall spiral slide, multiple jet airplanes suspended in the air, and metal tunnels to crawl through….It’s hard to describe, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The basic premise of City Museum was to preserve some of the architectural landmarks of St. Louis for posterity and over the years it’s evolved into a playground for adults and children alike.
This was followed up by an obligatory visit to the Annheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis. Excel
lent visit, only had to drink a small glass of Bud Light. They had Goose Island on tap in the tasting room. I survived…Had a quick lunch at an excellent BBQ place across the street. Little joint across the street from the brewery house in an old police station really hit the spot. Staff was friendly and food was good. If you’re ever in St. Louis, check out the Capitalist Pig.
After the brewery it was time to hit the road. I made it to Kansas City, M.O. by about 7 PM. I was lucky enough to procure the last bed in the only hostel in KC. Honeycomb Hostel. This is where it gets interesting. While reading the reviews of this place online (on the way there) there was a review that accused the place of being a human trafficking depot, at this point in the evening it was my only option. So onwards we go. Short version of the story, I asked the owner Elsa about the review and she freaked out. Apparently she’s been hosting some students from the Philippines for a couple months now and this person(online reviewer) was annoyed that there were young people present in the hostel. I’d only been there an hour at this point.
One of the other guests (Dave?) was extraordinarily friendly, which is fine. He was apparently in town for “business” which turned into him launching into a full blooded sales pitch about how his business makes people feel, and how great his company is, and how it helps people! Notice he hasn’t said what it is yet…Eventually this discussion moves to the dining room where the hostel’s owner is and he launches in on the same sales pitch to her and she calls him out hard and he starts showing her the “product”. Oh if you could only feel the awkward tension in the room…There were seven people in that room and I’m certain he was the only one who didn’t know that he was at the very least part of a poorly designed MLM company and at the worst a Ponzi Scheme style “travel deals club” organization. (worldventures.com, dreamtrips.com) It was a little depressing. He was showing us videos of the “Quarterly Marketing Event” he was attending in KC, it wreaked of every MLM organizations “pump-up” event I’ve ever seen. Eventually he grew tired of the hostel owner telling him to “Stop trying to sell me this obvious shit“; proceeded to have a massive meltdown in the living room of the hostel. It was beautifully awkward. I felt a little sorry for him, but not enough to defuse the situation.
Later in the evening I made good friends with another guest at the hostel who was visiting the owner. She was a long distance runner (100 miler trail races), skydiver, triathlete, electrical engineer, and Phd candidate. I asked her when she slept and she very seriously said that she doesn’t sleep. I made it until about 12:30 in the evening with the remaining hostelers before I crashed. Overall a very enjoyable crowd, glad I stopped in.
Day 6: 259.4 Miles
Trip Total: 1430.8 Miles,