My Summer Caking

This summer I spent much of my evenings and weekends looking for the St Louis 250 Birthday Cakes.  I traveled long and far to collect photographs of these crazy cakes.  It became this quest which required a list, google maps, instagram, and gas.  Good thing I drive a Prius. 

 

What started as just taking a few photographs of the cakes close to my house became an obsession which drove some of my friends on facebook crazy.  In the process I re-discovered my city, found parks I never knew existed, and drove to the ends of the St Louis metropolitan area and then some.  I found 252 cakes and even made a silly little video.  I enjoyed myself and regret nothing.

The Venice Café Cake is my favorite.

The Daniel Boone House Cake is one of the prettiest designs.

 

 

 

The Aerie's Winery Cake has the best view.

 

 

The Malcolm Martin Cake is the most surprising location with its geyser and pristine park.

 

One of my favorite details is the Elephant on the Eads Bridge Cake.

 

 

And my favorite photograph at the St Charles Heritage Site is the one with my dear friend, Kim, who inspired me to start cake hunting.

 

 

My summer was full of cakes, and in the end finding them made me happy and I regret nothing.

More Pride

We went to enjoy the rainbow lights downtown tonight.  Yes those are rainbow lights on the civil courts building paid for by civic money.  St Louis loves it's LGBTQ community. Making me proud of my hometown all over again.

And here we are trying to take a decent relfie in front of the civil courts.  We got to get better at that.

And My Hometown Does Me Proud!

Yesterday I went into work to find a message on my voicemail from a friend who also works for the city and she said there was going to be a press conference at 9 AM in the Mayor's office and I should be there.  I had no idea what was going on, but I trust my friend so off to silly hall I went. 

Something about the Mayor's office always makes me feel like I am in trouble, but I put some starch in my spine and marched right in.  The lobby of the office was full of reporters with cameras.  I stood by the door looking around, seeing no one I knew, but I noticed a rainbow flag in the corner with all U.S., state, and city flag.  Something was up, something I wanted to stay and find out more about.

A polite, young woman came up to me and we chatted about the purpose of the press conference.  She pulled up an article on her phone and pointed to it.  The previous night the Recorder of Deeds had issued 4 marriage licenses to 4 same sex couples.  Those couples had been married in the mayor's office and the press conference was to announce the City of St Louis was challenging the constitutionality of the state of Missouri's same-sex ban!  Yes, my hometown was standing with the  LGBTQ community.

The Mayor came in with 4 newly hitched same-sex couples.  He gave a great speech outlining the city's goal.  The goal to open marriage to same-sex couples.  The City Counselor's Office, the Recorder of Deeds, and the Mayor's office worked together to cause a case challenging the state's ban.  The Attorney General of Missouri had already filed an injunction to not allow the city to issue anymore same-sex marriage licences.  The Mayor said they will comply, but will continue to press this issue through the courts with the hope the ban will be proven unconstitutional.

I admit, I teared up with pride at my city.  Yes, this was an extremely orchestrated legal event, but little old Midwestern St Louis did it (https://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/mayor/news/marriage-licenses-to-same-sex-couples.cfm).  Also, seeing 4 couples happy and proud to be the first 4 same-sex couples legally married in Missouri filled me with joy.  I was so overwhelmed that after the press conference I hugged the Mayor.  Yes, I gave him one of those big girl happiness hugs.  I am a little embarrassed at myself for being so expressive, but you know happiness should be shared.  Congratulations to the newlyweds way to go St Louis!

The Gayest Cake!

Captured this cake at The LGBT Center in St Louis.  May not be the prettiest or cleverest cake, but that it is there at all makes it my favorite so far.  Much Love

Cakeway to the West

I love public art!  The randomness of coming upon a piece of art in a surprising location always delights me.  Sometimes the piece is not inspiring, but I appreciate the intent.  Back in my yarn bombing days, I hoped my little knitted things delighted those who saw poles wrapped with bits color. I know when I find public installations, I am like, "Yay, ART!"

Lyons Park, the first cake I found

Back in the 90s (remember those days?) everyone was inspired by the cows on parade.  Cities everywhere jumped on that bandwagon with their version of "whatever" on parade.  St. Louis even did a similar thing with people on parade, it was kind of lame to be honest.  With this year being the quarter-millennial anniversary of my home town, St. Louis city planners decided to revise this idea with four foot fiberglass birthday cakes.  The goal is to have 250 cakes placed in the St Louis metro area.

Chatillon Demenil Mansion Wedding Cake

I have seen several of these cakes popping up all over town.  I gave them some thought, but not much.  Last week I was having lunch with a friend and she mentioned the cakes and how she wanted to see them.  I felt I would help her by taking some photos of the cakes in my neighborhood.  I am up to 13 cakes, if I were to continue I would have 237 more to go.  I am doubtful that I will be that committed to cake hunting, but you never know.

Cherokee Street Cake, Beautifully Decorated Cake

I actually met other cake hunters today, so I am not the only one looking for these installations.  I actually, talked to a mother and daughter today who were up to 80 cakes.  I told them I really loved the crazy cake at Venice Café in Benton Park.  This cake has a slice out of it and you can see it is made of BRAINS!  So cool.  They looked at me like I was weird and moved quickly away to their car.  Takes all kinds, I guess.

St Louis Silly Hall Cake (see this one 5 days a week)

I found a website with information about the cakes (http://www.stl250.org/cake.aspx).  The site is very helpful and advertises an app.  The app looks like a fun way to keep track of the cakes you have found.  Looks is the key word, in practice the app sucked and did not work.  It does help finding the cakes, but the game function doesn't.   I tied 4 times to capture a cake and it never worked, GRRR...  Once I stopped fooling with the app, I enjoyed just taking photos of the cakes and posting the photos on my social medias (facebook, twitter, instagram).  I even used hashtags for the first time, #stl250. 

Venice Café Cake, My Favorite

As you can imagine some cakes are better executed than others.  I am posting a few of my favorites.  The Venice Café cake is my favorite so far.  Venice Café is known for their crazy decorations, on first sighting the cake looked rather bland, but once I walked around it, I knew it was the perfect cake for them.  It was awesomely oozing blood.  Anyway, love them or hate them, looking for cakes is a fun way to spend a day.

Yarn Crawl or Doing My Part for the Economy

This weekend is the St Louis Area Yarn Store Crawl, where the owners lure the yarn heads in with the promise of free patterns and prizes.  With my debit card in hand, Natalie, Lenora, and a full tank of gas we were off making the loop around St. Louis.  The night before I gave it some thought and came up with a master plan for the trip and a list of things I am looking to purchase.  I packed my bag and I was ready by 11 to start doing some crawling.  I promised myself to space out the purchasing and try to buy something at 5 of the 6 locations.  I played the part of the Garmin.  Natalie was the chauffeur, and Lenora was, let's just say the rock star knitter in the back seat of the Ford Focus wagon.

We started at Hearthstone Knits and immediately I ran into a woman I had not seen in at least a year.  We chatted and caught up a little and before I knew it yarn was purchased and we were off to another location.  Knit and Caboodle in the bustling St Charles historic district was the most expensive stop of the day I fell in love with the drape of some gorgeous sea silk and well had to have it, in green (of course).  I found a lovely one ball knit lace scarf pattern for the very dear yarn.  I blame the evil Ariel at Knit and Caboodle for this purchase, not my own lack of control.

We ended at Knitty Couture in University City.  We got very lucky and were able to park right in front of the store.  I can't tell you how exciting it was to get all 6 spots stamped on my little passport or how awesome it was to get 6 free patterns by 6 designers that I knew. But I think the most exciting thing was that we had the rock star knitter, Lenore with us.  Everywhere we went people knew her and clamoured to talk to her about hardcore knitting issues and yarny gossip.  She knew everyone and I felt like a yarn groupie hanging out with her.    We rocked the yarn stores, and I think more than a few of them were glad when we took our rowdy selves out of their shops.

I came home with haul of magazines, yarn, and accessories, see the picture of haul at the top.  Keep your fingers crossed that one of us wins a prize (that bag at Hearthstone Knits was a stunner) and if we blazed across your trail Saturday I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for us.