On Saturday, we took a day trip to St. Louis because we
wanted to go through the Budweiser Brewery and to Grants Farm. Grants Farm is where I thought the
Clydesdales were kept and since it was a little further away, we went there
first. Both tours were free...or so we
thought.
As we approached St. Louis, we could see the Arch...
...which was big, but not as big as I had remembered it
being when we had driven through St. Louis years ago.
We also drove by Busch Stadium....
...home of the St. Louis Cardinals.
They had a home game at 1:30 and we thought about going but
the cheapest ticket I found was around $40 so we decided to stick with the free
stuff.
When we arrived at Grant's Farm, I mistakenly guided Chuck
to the employee entrance (oops!); but the nice guard at the gate showed us
where to find the visitor parking lot.
When we got to the parking lot, we found out that while the tour is
free, the parking was $12. (So much for
a "free" touring day.)
Oh well, we were going to get to see the Clydesdales and
that is what I really wanted to see. However,
when I looked at the map of Grant's Farm after we had paid the $12
parking fee, I realized that Grant's Farm is really more of a small zoo with
just a couple of small barns and a little bit of pasture for 4 or 5
Clydesdales. :(
We did see what was probably only a year old Clydesdale. He was cute.
Clydesdales have very big feet.
When we walked out of the barn, there was a little
"photo studio" where you could get your picture taken with a
Clydesdale for $30. Not!! I felt sorry for the Clydesdale having to
stand in that little building just to get his picture taken with people. We had our picture taken with a Budweiser Clydesdale
for free when we were in Daytona a couple of years ago so we decided to pass on
the $30 picture.
Since we had toured the "Clydesdale" portion of
Grant's Farm in under 15 minutes, we decided to go through the rest to at least
get our $12 worth. The first portion of
the farm tour is on a tram that drives through the farm.
Grant's Farm is very pretty and serene.
The farm originally belonged to Ulysses S. Grant and was
bought in 1907 by August Busch, Sr. (of Anheiser-Busch). We rode by the cabin that Grant built after
he got married but they only lived there for about 4 months.
The tram continued around the farm with the tram driver
telling us about the different animals on the farm. Along the tram ride, the farm had some
different breeds of cattle.
I think this guy needs a hair cut.
They also had some bison...
....and some baby bison.
The farm had some unusual animals like these white
something-or-others.
\
Unfortunately, we couldn't understand most of what the tram
driver was saying. He also seemed to
speed up when we were riding by the unusual animals so I didn't get any
pictures of them.
After getting off the tram, there was a small zoo with a
very big elephant...
...a couple of eagles that could no longer fly because they
had permanently injured their wings...
...and some camels.
They also had some kangaroos...
...and some wallabies...
...and some exotic birds.
Grant's Farm is the kind of place to bring your
grandchildren and we wished ours had been with us. Isabella would have loved seeing all the
animals.
We left Grant's Farm and drove back into downtown St. Louis
to the Budweiser Brewery.
There were some Clydesdales on the premises...
...and they have beautiful stables that were built in
1885...
but these Clydesdales were busy eating.
One of the first stops on the tour were these huge vats
where the beer was cold-processed for 21 days. (That's a lot of beer.)
We then went into the Brew House...
...where the brew kettles were located.
Budweiser survived during the 13 year period of Prohibition
by first trying to produce some non-alcoholic beverages but when that was not
successful, they went on to produce and sell truck and bus bodies, refrigerated
cabinets, baker's yeast, and even cereal products. When Prohibition ended, the Budweiser
Clydesdales were driven through these gates of the Brew House.
They next took us to the bottling house which was huge.
The tour guide said that these bottles go to a 10-acre underground warehouse that stretches almost to the Mississippi River. The warehouse will contain about 500,000 cases of beer at any one time. Do you know how long it takes the midwestern United States to consume 500,000 cases of beer? 18 hours. After we left the Budweiser tour, we walked a few blocks
down the street ...
to a pizza restaurant where we had some lunch.
On the way back home, we saw this car that was carrying what
looked like a lot of plastic wheel wells on top of his car.
Didn't look too safe to us so we hurried on by and headed
back home.
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