Welcome To My Neck Of The Woods

Welcome all ye people from Blog Around The World!!! Its so nice of you to stop by. Missouri, the Show Me state, is the feature state of the day....and that is certainly my neck of the woods! More precisely, St. Louis is my neck of the woods. I've lived here all of my life and it will probably always be home.

St. Louis is nice because its big enough to have lots of things to do and small enough to not be overcrowded.

It is home to Rams Football, Cardinals Baseball and Blues Hockey. (And no, my favorite Cardinal is not Albert Pujols.....it is Yadier Molina - best catcher in the Midwest - maybe the whole world!!!! BWAAAHAAAHAHAHAHA)

We also have the Arch - the Gateway to the West!

(ETA:) And YES, you can go up in it! There is also a museum in the bottom of the Arch (however I didn't really find interesting)

We have the World's Greatest Zoo (they said it, not me)!

We're proud of our heritage of Blues music.....but probably even more proud to be the Home of Budweiser, as Anheuser Busch's headquarters is here (well, for now anyway). Which also means we have Grant's Farm (as Anheuser Busch owns this too) - this is a sprawling property with plentiful wildlife where General Grant's home is. It's like a HUGE petting zoo with free beer at the end of your tour!

Also, these beauties (below) can be found at Grant's Farm, as well as, the Budweiser Brewery where you can take a tour!

When in St. Louis you have try the toasted ravs (from anywhere on The Hill) and you must stop at Ted Drewes for the frozen custard - its a tradition!

It is also home to extreme humidity and heat in the summer, extreme cold in the winter and apparently a bajillion mosquitoes!

In honor of Missouri's feature today I wanted to post a "Visitor's Guide to Driving in St. Louis". I did not write this, I got in an email a long time ago and was waiting for the perfect time to pull it out. It is totally true.

The morning rush hour is from 6:00 to 10:00 AM.

The evening rush hour is from 3:00 to 7:00 PM.

Friday's rush hour starts Thursday morning.

Gravois Road can only be pronounced by a native.

Ditto for Spoede and Chouteau.

Highway 40 is the same as Interstate 64 through the middle of St.Louis. Most native St. Louisans do not even know what I-64 is, much less it's old name, "The Daniel Boone Expressway."

Construction on Highways 40, 64, 70, 255, 270, 44, 55 and 170 is a way of life, and a permanent form of entertainment.

The Page Avenue extension and Airport expansion projects took over 20 years to get approved and St. Louisans lost track of how many political figures claimed them as their own ideas.

A St. Louisan from South County has never been to North County and vice versa.

West County has everything delivered.

Stop signs are suggestions.

Stoplights do not turn green for waiting drivers until the car in front has already started moving. The line of waiting cars therefore "caterpillar" their way across the intersection.

YIELD signs are for decoration only. No native St. Louisan will ever grasp the concept.

There are 2 exits on Highway 40 for Clayton Road and 2 for Big Bend.

Laclede Station Road mysteriously changes names as you cross intersections.

As do McCausland, Lindbergh, Watson, Reavis Barracks, Fee Fee, McKnight, Airport Road, Midland, Olive, Clarkson and Telegraph.

You can go all four directions on Highway 270: North and South in West County , East and West in South County , and East and West in North County. I-270 turns into I-255 in South County for no apparent reason. Confused? So are the St. Louis drivers.

The main highway going from St. Louis to Illinois (which most native St. Louisans do not acknowledge exists) is called "The Poplar Street Bridge ". However, the bridge does NOT convey Poplar Street , but rather Highway 40, across the Mississippi. Poplar is a street near the bridge on the St. Louis side. Mapmakers finally had to include the nickname on their products in the 1980s to end the confusion.

Most municipalities have their own snow removal contracts so it's not uncommon to drive down a road in winter and have one block plowed, the next salted, the next piled with snow and the last partially cleared by residents wanting to get out of their driveways.

The street, Lindbergh, belongs to every neighborhood except Kirkwood, who had the nerve to creatively change the name to ' Kirkwood Road '.

Any car parked longer than 4 hours in the city, is considered a parts store.

Highway 270 is our daily version of the NASCAR circuit.

Lambert Field and St. Louis International Airport really are the same place. The East Terminal, however, is a different place.

The outer belt is Highway 270 which turns into Highway 255 in South County .The inner belt is Highway 170 and if it's a 3XX number it's an alternate outer belt.

If you need directions to O'Fallon, make sure to specify Illinois or Missouri .

The City of Ballwin actually proposed that drivers use connecting strip mall parking lots to get from place to place rather than drive on Manchester Road to cut the traffic on Manchester Road.

If it snows or rains - Stay home!!!

Thanks for stopping by today. If you haven't been to my blog before feel free to make yourself at home and look around. I hope you enjoy your stay and you're welcome back anytime!

ETA: I also forgot to say that Missouri is home to the newest American Idol winner, David Cook!!! Yep, he was home grown here in the midwest!