Favorite places to visit (Kansas City, St. Louis: house, live, restaurant)

[Northwoods Voyager]

Hello all. I am putting together a brief summary of Missouri's Favorite Places. Most of this is for family that no longer lives in Missouri. Want to show them what's new, hot spots, favorite places and sites you would love to go to yourself.

So, whether you have lived here all of you life, lived here for awhile, just moved here or want to move here, or heck, you just like to visit Missouri, how about listing your favorite TOP 5. I know, I know, that's not many, but it will be enough for what I need. Maybe a few words or so why you choose the places.

You know, is it a place that's great for family, couples, young or older (HA), or singles. Whether it's a landmark, scenic site, neat little village, historic place, super shopping area, etc. How about some help here? Okay?

Thanks a lot

[da jammer]

hey this is a great idea! I would kinda like to get a long list of places built up myself seein' how I'm a new arrival to MO.

BTW if you think you will be able to keep our buddy ShadowCaver to five choices .........

[Northwoods Voyager]

Originally Posted by da jammer

hey this is a great idea! I would kinda like to get a long list of places built up myself seein' how I'm a new arrival to MO.

BTW if you think you will be able to keep our buddy ShadowCaver to five choices .........

You are too right Guess I should have made it special in his case. Like limits of 5K or so? Oh, well, we will see.....

Yes, I have been wanting to do this for a coupla weeks, but kinda got sidetracked, if you know what I mean

[MoNative34]

From a Native whose lived in St. Louis, Springfield, Kansas City and Buchanan County

1. Arch
2. Alley Spring (or Big, Blue, Bennet, etc.)
3. Lake of the Ozarks
4. St. Louis Zoo
5. City Market in KC
6. Mingo Swamp
7. Katy Trail
8. White Castle Hamburgers
9. Cheif's football game
10. Blues Hockey!

[Lake Junkie]

OK.
Finally off work...wanted to get in a few thoughts before I dive in.

1. St. Louis! Forest Park: The Muni, Art Museum & etc. The Arch. Trader Joe's. Shaw's Garden, Busch Gardens. The brewery. St Charles, yea I know it's it's own place, whatever.
2. St. Charles county. Wine tasting...yea.
3. Ha Ha Tonka. Not in this heat.
4. Dawt Mill. The restaurant at Rockbridge. OMG...Yummm. The whole mill tour.
5. Any local dirt track. (This here's the grass roots of racing, ya know.)
6. Crane's broiler fest.
7. Springfield's Blues Fest.
8. Springfield's First Friday Art Walk. It's All Downtown.com...
9. Springfield's Blues Society monthly meetings. Food and blues.
10. Do I even need to mention the water? Besides the cool history of the Missouri & Mississippi rivers, and lakes like Table Rock, Taneycomo, Bull Shoals, Pomme de Terre, Stockton, Truman, Lake of the Ozarks, etc...there's a creek out every back road...a party waiting at every creek.
I LOVE MISSOURI!

Whewwww. OK. Somebody else take it from here.
I'm out.

[Northwoods Voyager]

Hey there: What happened to the '5". You guys are waaayyyy over the top.. But I'll take it. I knew this would happen, just too much here to limit to 5, Was going to ask for the traditional 10, but was afraid you guys would do 20 or more Thanks and more thanks. So far....Good choices. But what in the heck is 'Crane's broiler fest'? That's a new one on me.

[Music Junkie]

Do they still have the wonderful smaller wineries in the center and south central area of Missouri? There used to be a couple of really decent ones in the St. James area. I believe they might have been German ones. That is a great area to visit and do lots of wine tasting to boot.

[northbayeric]

A comprehensive list of Missouri wineries here: Missouri Wines

As for the St. James area, let's see....well this website specifies the nearest cities and towns the wineries are located at: Missouri Wineries MO Hopefully it's a current site and there are no broken links! Yet another place I'll have to check out--and St. James is close to Onondaga Cave too!

I think my favorite Missouri wine so far is Stone Hill's Steinberg White--kind of like a sweeter riesling that's perfect with dessert! But there's so many others out there too.

[northbayeric]

Hmmm, five places, huh? How about this? Can I put down my five favorite places I've been to, and then five more places that sound awesome that I would still like to visit sometime? Since I was born and raised in the St. Louis area, I'll leave out everything within the I-270 belt, and make a separate St. Louis list sometime if you want. I'm also leaving out St. Joseph, since I will be visiting it next month--wooooohooooo! Anyway, here we go:

Already visited:
5) Purina Farms (Gray Summit)
4) (tie) Meramec Caverns (Stanton), Bridal Cave (Camdenton)
3) (tie) Ha Ha Tonka State Park (Camdenton), Ste. Genevieve, Onondaga Cave (Leasburg)
2) (tie) Fort Davidson State Historic Site, Pilot Knob, Bollinger Mill State Historic Site, Burfordville (near the Cape)
1) Hermann

Would love to visit:
5) Precious Moments Museum (I think it's in Carthage, next to Joplin)
4) Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, Springfield
3) Jamesport (Amish community east of St. Joe)
2) (tie) Roaring River State Park, Kimberling City area and Table Rock Lake (visited the latter two over 25 years ago when I was a real young'n)
1) Alley Spring and Alley Mill
Honorable Mentions: Lexington and Weston. They both sound like fun historic towns!

OK, so the grand total comes to way more than 10. And I've left out St. Louis attractions. And I've left out St. Joseph attractions as well, such as the 26-mile parkway, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, the Pony Express National Museum, the Jesse James Home Museum, the Patee House Museum, Twin Spires, Krug Park, Lover's Lane Historic OK, that's enough now!The Moderator. Just kidding about the moderator--at least for now! But we're talking about Missouri places to visit! It's regrettable that so many here in California think all of these great places are just a part of flyover country! Wellll.....how little they know!

Edit: Please forgive me, and thank you in advance for your understanding. It's just that a visit to Gray Summit isn't complete without also going on the other side of I-44 from Purina Farms to visit the Shaw Nature Reserve! I mean, it's like only three dollars or so to get in, and you can easily spend at least half a day checking out all the places to hike and stroll there. Mrs. NorthBayEric and I got to visit it for the first time last year, and we'd love to go back and see it again.

[Northwoods Voyager]

Thank you, northbayeric, for your list. Wonderful. Yep, as I posted little bit ago, I knew 5 was not enough. But I also 'knew' that had I requested '10', I'd get '20' or so. Which really isn't a bad thing.

Glad to see so many places that I am familiar with. And then some I really need to check out. You are so right about the Shaw Nature Preserve. We visited it for the first time about 3 years ago.

Wonderful site. Would recommend it to everyone. If you don't mind the hiking around. The scenery is fabulous tho'. Thank you so much for taking the time to add to this thread. Having never been to St. Joe, I see I am missing a lot. Thanks again