Our first stop we mistakenly thought would be a short one. Katelyn loves animals. If you want to halt the girl in her tracks, put an animal in front of her. She really wanted to see the Clydesdale horses. We were not going to visit the Anheuser-Busch brewery on this trip. They do keep a few Clydesdale's there. But Anheuser-Busch purchased the Ulysses S. Grant farm and we were going to visit there. This is were the real stables are for raising Clydesdales and the majority of them are kept here.
This farm was really President Ulysses S. Grants land and home. The land was a wedding gift to the Grants. There is a log home on the property and it was built by Pres. Grant. To maintain the home as a significant historical landmark, the Anheuser-Busch purchased the farm and added the park now contained in the farm. It is called "Grant's Farm". You pay for parking only ($11 for our car) and there is no entry fee into the actual farm.
We got there and expected a little farm where we would spend a little bit of time and then on to other things to see in St. Louis. We ended up spending most of the day here.
Claude found us a spot in the parking lot near where the Clydesdale stables and fields are located. We got out of our car and found these on the lane in the parking lot...
These are hoof prints and they lead you across the parking lot to the Clydesdale stables. We really didn't need to follow them because our parking spot was right by the stables which we visited first.
There are signs on every enclosure warning you the horses may bite. I never saw any indication of it and I didn't test the horses to see if they would bite. Just took their word for it.
We found one horse laying down asleep in his stall. His name was Jake. We walked back thru his stall on our way to the trams and he was just beginning to wake up. Katelyn stood by a statue of a Clydesdale for a picture on my cell phone for me to send to Nissa. Just wanted her to know where her child was. We also sent one to Bailey via cell phone. She told Andie, "I yike that horse!" There was a little colt that was quite friendly. We by-passed the photo booth with the real Clydesdale in it for pictures. Here are a few of our pictures of our visit to the Clydesdales.
There are several gift shops at Grant's Farm. We popped in the one by the Clydesdale stables and Katelyn found her hat. I do think it fits her personality to a 'T'.
Now we were ready to drop our purchases into the trunk of the car on our way across to parking lot. They have you line up to get across the street and stream to get in another line to wait for the trams. Fortunately a lot of that is in the shade. I often marvel that we make friends in a line that takes a while and wonder if exchanging Christmas cards the next Christmas might be in order. Well...we weren't really in the line that long. But in front of us was a mother and baby and dad. The baby was in the stroller until we crossed the street and the stream. Then mommy took little Bryce out of his stroller for some holding and play time. Bryce started to look around and his eyes caught Claude with his beard and Cabela's hat. He was riveted on this man with all that hair and a hat. This little family was from Wisconsin and this was Bryce's first time to go to see animals. He did enjoy watching Claude. Claude even tried to let him touch his beard but he was a little to young to know all about doing that. Very nice people.
Then we climbed on the tram and took a tour of the farm acreage. We drove past Ulysses S. Grant's log home first. The gates to get into this portion of the farm are huge wrought iron affairs. On each side of the gate are huge stone columns with elk on to for decoration.
The tram then drives you around the perimeter of the acreage that makes up this farm. During this portion of the drive we saw the lay of the land and also geese, cows, ostriches, deer, blue herons, and other animals.
The tram drops you off at the entry to the park portion of the land. The first thing you see to your left is a 'milkhouse'. They sell big baby bottles of milk that little kids can use to feed that huge pen full of goats.
To the right is the Capybaras habitat. Katelyn kept quoting a line from 'Princess Bride' about 'rodents of unusual size' (I think that is right). Her observation was spot on.
In the center was a pond but we passed it quickly to get to the West Tier Garten Amphitheater. There was a show going on there and we had missed the first bit. But we stood at the top to watch the remainder.
The grossiest part was the 'rat race'. They had 3 young boys who said they weren't afraid of things come into the staging area. They also had 3 little girls who professed the same belief come into the staging area. Then they had the 3 boys stand to one side and stretch out their arms and lap them over one another. They had the 3 girls stand to the other side and do the same thing. Then they brought out 2 large white rats. What the kids had done was form a bridgelike road with their arms. The object was to put a rat at one end of the boys and the other rat at one end of the girls arms and see which rat could race to the end first. The boys rat won because the girls rat got tangled in one of the girls long hair. Yhew!!! Yuk!!! and any other 'y' words that fit for this race.
The other really cute thing they did was with a red parrot. We all know the Anheuser Busch logo with the large capital letter 'A' and with an eagle in it with it's wings spread. They put an 'A' on the table and told the red parrot to be the logo. The parrot inserted his head in the 'A' and spread his wings. Great fun to watch.
This parrot also did math games. There was an owl in this show and some other things. Then we went back to the pond we passed on the way into the amphitheater. I was ever so happy we went back. Guess what I found...HUGE Tortois'i'. This made a turtle lovin' girls day. As I started to take pictures, the one in front raised his head as if to pose for the picture. I'm using his picture as my wallpaper on my cell phone now.
There were beautiful birds and parrots all over the grassy areas in the middle. Along one side was an enclosure with a big iguana in it. Katelyn was fascinated with this because when she was a baby they had an iguana for a pet in their apartment.
The next show was about elephants. To get there we passed a fox, a peacock, the lemur habitat, the elephant habitat and, most importantly, the Tier Garten Treats. We made note of the 'treat' location and headed into the East Tier Garten Amphitheater to get good seats for the elephant show.
The elephant's name was Mickey. He was full of personality and worked really well with his trainer. The purpose of the show was to educate you about the life of an elephant not just to show you some tricks. Although that was used to show you how their body works. They started off talking about the pads on Mickey's feet and how they cushion the 4,000 pounds of his body when he walks. Mickey obligingly lifted his front foot first and put it through the fence. Then he did his back foot so we could see the pads on the bottom of his feet.
He also opened his mouth so we could see his teeth inside his mouth. Most of us think of the tusks as his teeth but there are other ones in the back of his mouth and they can get big. They also fall out as they wear out and he grows others.
To show the flexibility of his trunk a lady in the audience brought down a dime from her purse. She gave it to the trainer. The trainer laid it on the concrete ground in front of the fence. Mickey reached through with his trunk and picked up that penny. He then carefully carried it over to the lady and placed it in her hand with his trunk.
Mickey showed us his ability to balance all 4,000 pounds of his girth on one front foot and the opposite back foot.
Then they told us they eat huge amounts of food each day. Some of this is front the tops of very tall trees. To illustrate this they put a piece of food on a long pole and held it up. Mickey stretched his body and trunk to reach that food.
Mickey did lots of other things like twirling around, and obeying other commands. He even showed how he filled his trunk (which is really a combination of his upper lip and his nose) with water and used it to spray himself to cool himself off. Then he took his bows at the end. It was a very good show and really informative in a fun way.
After the show we made a bee-line for the Tier Garten Treats. Time for some liquid refreshment in all that heat. We enjoyed funnel cake sticks also.
While we were eating Mickey came out to eat LOTS of hay and to play in his habitat before his next show. They had a tire tied to a tree trunk with a rope. Mickey was extremely exuberant with this tire. I would not want him coming at me like he did with the tire. It made me appreciate their keeping him behind a steel fence during the program. He is probably a very gently beast but if he got upset...Katy bar the door!!!
Our tummy's refreshed we were ready to walk more of Grant's Farm. We passed the Five Fountain Lake full of all kinds of birds from cranes to black swans. The funniest to me was this little fella. He was a duck but I don't know what kind. He had a tuft of feathers on his head that looked like a really bad toupee.
Then we found the miniature horses and donkeys. In the picture below, Katelyn is petting a Mediterranean donkey. They have such pretty markings.
Then we found the llamas and the camels. The llamas had all been sheered recently. I showed Katelyn this picture of her with a llama and we both agreed they both had the same expression on their faces. I think the single sheered llama looks like some kind of poodle cut.
Since this is owned by Anheuser-Busch, there is a Bauerhof in Grant's Farm with a Brat Haus. We didn't get a brat because that line was forever long. But we did tour the collection of antique carriages, more horses with unusual manes, a firearms collections, and we noted gargoyles in the ceilings.
Claude took a seat at a table with an umbrella in the middle of the Bauernhof and Katelyn and I headed back to see some animals we missed. The girl does love her animals. We found the eagles (not the band, the bird), the kangaroos and the lemurs. Then we met Claude, found the tram and headed back to my car.
We left Grant's Farm very happy we picked that as one of our tourist stops.
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