The Craziest Museum That You Ever Did See

 St. Louis, MO

City Museum

What do you get when you combine Meow Wolf, a construction site, a warehouse, old school playgrounds, a skateboard park, and a disregard for safety?  You get City Museum, the most amazing, craziest museum that you ever did see.  We first went to City Museum in 2015 and it blew our minds.  I have thought about coming back since then and we finally got to make it happen on this stay in St. Louis.  It's hard to capture in photos but we did our best.

We had the luxury to go on a Monday so it was pretty empty which was very nice.

Donna started out feeding the coi.

But then we headed to our first slide (the orange thing to the upper right in this photo)

It's a monster of a slide like the sign says.

And she's gone!

I'm the Rocket Man!  Burning up the Monster Slide!

Next we did some tight space climbing

It helped build the calluses on our shins and spine.

Next it was my turn.  It was a tighter fit for me so I had to use a different tecnique to ascend.

The backwards pull up method worked for me

That's what we were climbing in.

There is art and they make it clear that you can't climb on it.

There are a few food stands and bars you can visit so we obliged.

They had some cool taxidermy and insects

The museum also has building decoration displays saved from buildings in and around the area.

There is a lot of cool metal art and there must have been a ton of welders during the initial build of the museum.

Here is a good shot of me screwing around in some crawl coils having fun destroying my shins.  If we ever got annual passes I would buy knee pads and maybe shin guards and go crazy.

The crawl coil led to another slide.  There was also an easier way to get there.

Next up is the 10 story shoe slide.  You can see multiple shoe slides but only the 10 story and 6 story slides are open in use now and the 6 story slide was closed probably because they didn't want to staff it on such a slow day.

Donna gets ready to go

And then arrives at the bottom about 29 seconds later.  Once she leaves the yellow striped area it's my turn!

I didn't take any video sliding.  It's a pretty rough ride.  My pro tip for speed is to wear shoes that are pretty worn out and wear a slick shirt.  If you arch your back on the way down so just your heals and shoulder blades are touching you really get going.  I used this on all of the slides and it really made them fun.  We had so much fun on the 10 story slide that we ran back up the stairs and rode again.

Sometimes exploration isn't pretty

I tried the spider web net and it was fun.

Next we headed to The Roof which is a separate ticket you can add one.  I think when we went in 2015 the roof was included but the Ferris Wheel was extra.  I think this is a better way to do it.  They said the elevator was out so we did another 10 floors of stairs.  When we got to the top we found out the elevator worked to the 9th floor and then you walk the last set of steps to the top.  Oh well, it was good exercise.  

It's hard to see but the front of the bus hangs off the edge of the building.

The obligatory Thelma and Louise shot.

Next up was the Ferris Wheel.

It's really high and it was very windy so we were a bit nervous to ride but we got brave

This is what fun, fright, and wind look like close up.  I also had a death grip on my phone.

I did the big roof slide.  The bottom half is a slide and the top part is a tube you can climb up.  I ended up sliding under people.

Then I climbed to the tippy top.  It was pretty scary and it was a tight squeeze

Here is the UnSkatepark.  It's your chance to enjoy a skatepark without all of the skaters.

Donna tries here parkour skills in the bowl.

We both also learned about our upper body and hand strength.  We have watched MXC and know what can go wrong.

These chairs were very fun

I took a photo of some kids in the crawl tube

We did some more climbing to find another slide.

The last area we explored was the most like Meow Wolf.  Lots of art and crawling spaces.  You find yourself asking, "How do I get there?  Can I go in here?" and usually the answer is yes if you can fit.  There were some crawl spaces that I would not fit in.

City Museum is a super fun place.  I can't imagine keeping track of kids here.  The last time we were here Donna went into a crawl space that I chose not to go into and we ended up on separate floors and had to re-find each other.  We spent about 3 hours there and I was exhausted at the end of our time.  I pulled a muscle on the first climb but I think I re-pulled it later so it cancelled itself out.

That was it for today.  Another must visit place checked off the list!  If you missed The Czech Festival and a Tornado Warning check it out.  We have 10 whole days left here in St. Louis.  There is still a lot to do.