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The Museum Tour

 

City Museum in St. Louis, MO

Craig climbing to plane

 The museum of climbing, sliding, and investigating. The building is divided into three areas:  Outside, Inside, and the Roof. We didn't get to the roof, but the outside is represented here  first. The best overall view is found on the main Vacation page, but here we see Craig  climbing up the stairs to the jet plane and, after climbing through the plane, Craig is out on  the wing, preparing to climb over an open area to a walkway - no there is no floor, but you  are several stories up.

Craig on plane wing

 Here we see Patty & Craig outside roasting marshmallows on provided 'sticks'.

Patty & Craig roasting marshmellows

Patty is standing on an outside castle bridge above our parked car.

Patty crossing bridge from castle towerone type of stairway between floorsPatty on 2nd floor of City Museum

 On the right is one set  of stairs used to move  from one floor to  another.

 Below Patty is walking  across a balcony on the  second floor. The sea  animals are on the first  floor.

 The green light behind Patty is where the mouth of the whale  comes out on the first  floor.

Whale walk down from 2nd floor

Patty walks down the length of the whale and comes out on the first floor, as seen in the photo on the right.

Below, in one corner of the building, is a complex series of climbing objects and circular slides.

In #1 Craig is seen climbing a set of stairs. People could also reach this level by climbing up the coiled steel rings.

There is a circular slide in the very back, but Craig starts into a winding slide in #2.

Patty went down this same slide and we see her in #3.

Finally #4 shows Craig coming out at the very end of the slide.

complex slide on 2nd floorcomplex slide on 2nd floorcomplex slide on 2nd floorcomplex slide on 2nd floorPatty exiting slide area by garage

Just after leaving the slide above, there is a small passage way to another slide, or steps down to the 1st floor. Patty takes this way and you can see cars in the garage in the window at the side of this path.

Below are a series of crawling tubes. These, and others like them are used to get to many places and levels in the museum.

The one on the left is an actual wood tree, but the somewhat hollowed out inside is covered in a light plastic, so that you don't get splinters.

The ones on the left are metal, but each design is different.

In some of these tubes you can crawl, but some are small enough that you have to get on your back and slide yourself through. Craig had to do this in navigating all of these three passageways. 

corridor crawl space in woodcrawl space in metalPatty on a normal slidePatty on a normal slidePencil meeting area on 3rd floor

The slide above is easily accessed from the first floor entrance - moderately active adults will enjoy this. Many of the other techniques for travel are for the more adventurous, or kids with boundless energy.

There is the 'Pencil Meeting Place' on the 3rd floor that is directly accessible from normal stairs. There is a place to purchase food nearby and everyone eventually finds their way here.

There are museum exhibits that are more conventionally constructed, but we didn't take any pictures of them. All of them are accessible from normal stairs, but also from all the unique paths throughout the building.

Below is an area we can only describe as the 'skateboardless' skateboard park. You can slide and move and crawl everywhere.

Also on the 3rd floor is a place for younger children and even a nursery of sorts.

Besides there is this exhibit of Robot Luv that Craig & Patty found.

skateboardless skateboard park for everyonerobot luv - Craig & Patty

The caves main entrance is on the 1st floor, but they cover a number of floors in the museum and come out in all sorts of different places. Most of the tunnels, however, wind up in this main cavern - shown in both pictures below, from different angles. You don't realize this for awhile, because for each entrance the entry is so unique. The caves is where the flashlight will come in handy, but the tunnels don't go too far - though they do wind around - before some type of lighting is shown.

central cave meeting area

One of the tunnel exits leads to this 10-story circular slide. There are also several shorter slides in this complex, but aggressive adults and most kids will need to try to hike the circular stairs to the top to try the big slide at least once. Of course the slide is circular and only about eight feet in diameter, so your speed is kept down by the constant circular sliding. Of course this means when you get to the bottom you are going to be quite dizzy.

10 story slide10 story slide10 story slide

Our last picture is of Patty in the gift shop, just off the entrance. Again there is a weird stairway to the 2nd floor - nothing is up there, but you can see where a number of tunnels come out and you have this view of the shop below. The shop does sell flashlights and knee pads, along with all the expected tourist requirements.

Patty at the gift shop

While you can continue to look at the insides of the Meow Wolf Museum in Santa Fe, you may want to click back to the main page and follow our vacation to Santa Fe. You can directly access these pictures there

MEOW WOLF Museum in Santa Fe, NM

You saw the entrance to the museum on the main page, along with Craig playing some type of dinosaur bones.

Now you see a couple of ways you can enter/exit rooms in this museum. There is a kitchen refrigerator door and a washing machine door to go through from the main house as you enter the exhibit, but here are two more entrances you will find later in the building. Craig is going through a commercial ice chest case and Patty is stepping through a portal into what appears to be an undersea aquatic world.

Craig through refrigeration to another roomPatty making an aqua entryPatty in the cartoon room

This room reminds us of one of the Terrytoon Cartoons of our youth. It is like Patty is actually in a cartoon.

Some of the furniture is real and some is simply drawn on the table/walls, floor. You can hardly tell which is which without some thought.

The entire scene is done in primary colors - like most cartoons - and the effect is definitely unsettling.

Below we see Patty beside a somewhat secluded area within a major central room like scene that is used to access much of the museum. There are many ways to get anywhere and many types of methods to get there.

Also we see Craig in the Blue Room. Pushing buttons impacts lights, movement and apparent perspective in this museum.

One room that impressed us, but we didn't get any pictures, was a dark place where there was laser light beams that looked like harp strings. the funny thing was that you could play those strings and get sounds much like a harp. Very strange and unique.

Patty in an alcove off one central roomCraig in the blue roomPatty in a dental cavity

 Here we have Patty in what might be called a dental cavern.

 We call it this because it has the coloration and slimy feel of  looking into our mouth.

Patty in a tree house

Climbing a set of circular stairs we come to a landing that branches in several directions.

If, instead of taking any of these branching paths into other areas, we crawl through a short, small door, we come into this oddly shaped tree-house room. 

Throughout this house there are some things that give us strange information and, if we try really hard, we can start to understand that there is a story to be told in this museum - if only we could uncover all the clues.

In our four hour stay, we uncovered a number of secrets, but our impression was that there were quite a few more things we could learn by prowling all the different rooms, and reading all the notes we could find.

If you go to this museum, allow yourself plenty of time to simply wander all the strange and unique rooms and pathways - it was, after all, designed by a number of somewhat unrelated artists. However, also allow time for you to search for clues about the underlying story about this house and the family that occupied it.

Craig & Patty - reflections of a strange tree field room

One of the ways to exit the house, other than to go back out the front door, was to find your way through this field of starkly colored branches. The effect was enhanced by a series of mirrors and we used these to make this photo of a reflection of Craig & Patty looking through the branches.

There was more to see and more to photograph, but we only spent four hours here and would like to come back again. If you get to Santa Fe, stay awhile and make time to visit this place.