Things to do in St. Louis in the Summer

So, how do a couple of Colorado climbers keep themselves busy in St. Louis in the summer? Welp, we’ve been all over town and having a great time. There’s a bunch of random pictures up in the gallery.

Mostly, we’ve been enjoying perfect weather at home, relaxing in the afternoons and then heading out to buzz around town in the evenings. Our first night in we went for a walk down Zombie Road. I suppose Kevin heard about this one on one of his paranormal shows, and Mark and I went along for the ride on his “investigation.” Here’s a description from the website:

Those who recall the road when it was more widely in use have told me that the narrow, winding lane, which runs through roughly two miles of dense woods, was always enveloped in a strange silence and a half-light. Shadows were always long here, even on the brightest day, and it was always impossible to see past the trees and brush to what was coming around the next curve. … Strangely, even those that I talked to with no interest in ghosts or the unusual all mentioned that Zombie Road was a spooky place. I was told that one of the strangest things about it was that it never looked the same or seemed the same length twice, even on the return trip from the dead end point where the stone company’s property started. “At times”, one person told me, “we had the claustrophobic feeling that it would never end and that we would drive on forever into deeper darkness and silence.”

We were out there in the pitch black darkness, with only two headlamps between the six of us. It was a creepy spot. The road runs down the middle of a narrow, deep ravine, and was very, very dark. We didn’t see any ghosts or zombies. One guy on a mountain bike riding in the dark with no light, but that was it. A little weird, but nothing unexplainable. Of course, we didn’t last more than 10 minutes or so on that road. And it was definitely longer on the way out than the way in.

We had our obligatory stop at Ted Drew’s for tasty custard. The place was packed and had quite the party atmosphere of an iconic roadside eatery on a summer evening. Good food, fun stop, a must do.

We’ve also spent a good bit of time catching up on our movie watching. We saw Wanted, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It had the surrealistic feel of Fight Club, without too much of the disturbing insanity bits. I’ve got to say, watching the trailer just now, the movie wasn’t quite what it seemed to be advertised to be. A very twisting plot. Angelina Jolie was not a love interest. And the main character never said “Whoa!” once.

And, there’s always food and beer. My mother is an amazing cook, and this week we’ve had the best bar-b-que in years, fantastic macaroni salads and I had my first SLT (Spam-Lettuce-Tomato) sandwich today. Pretty good, really. We’ve also hit up local breweries a bit, including Fitz’s in my old stomping grounds in the Loop, and Schlafly’s in Maplewood. All good food! Climbing might be a bit harder when we get home.