Ryan: Concrete Land

So let me tell you a story about an adventure... It all starts at the City Museum in St. Louis; If you don't know, the city museum is one of the most incredible places ever to have been created. It was built by an artist (Bob) who has ideas- incredible ideas, that he follows... To give you an idea of the museum I'll say this, there's a 17ft Praying mantis on the roof, along with a school bus and a crane (12 stories up). The inside has caves, re bar tunnels, hollowed out trees, and a gigantic whale in the middle of it (originally the museum was going to be an aquarium)... Anyway, you can climb on or through ANYTHING. Meaning if you can fit, you can go. The only rules were "the City Museum is not responsible for injuries, no running, have fun" Needless to say it is a giant playground for the young and the old. I loved it, every second. I woke up a little sore from all the climbing, but it was so worth it.

On to Concrete land: we were leaving St. Louis after hearing of Bob's next project; Concrete land. Naturally we wanted to find it, all we had heard is its incredible, there are two lakes and Bob goes there to bulldoze all the time. Off of our bike path we see it. So it was time to explore. We went through the gate to find a massive amount of stuff... Stuff being abandoned school buses,a couple planes, dilapidated buildings, piles of trash, etc etc... We begin to explore, make our way higher for a better view when the art begins to shine through. Some of the old buildings have been transformed into Castles. They'd taken rubble and re built it on the outside to resemble outstanding structures. From there we see a chimney. A huge tower hovering over the rest of "Concrete land." Below the chimney is a bulldozer, accompanied by a man with a distraught look on his face. It was Bob. And his 'Dozer' was stuck. We had to meet him. So we went down to say hello (Adam had already introduced himself and begun helping Bob with his dozer). We walk up and the first thing Bob says is "your doing a trip about experience, huh?" "You should go climb the chimney." Andy and I looked at each other, then back at Bob and said "is that ok? See ya in a few" and raced off to conquer the feat.

After 170 ladder rungs (270 feet) one begins to realize how difficult it actually is
to climb a ladder. We got to the top and saw a view of the city skyline that few people have seen. Then my arms cramped up. We spit a couple times and dropped some pebbles, then were ready to climb down. Half way down Bob yells up "there's some loose bricks at the top you can throw down if you'd like" (but it we were already on our way down).

Bobs plan is to build all the abandoned buildings into castles, make a spiral staircase up the chimney, and flood the whole area with water. Then he wants to take targets and place them in the water so people can throw stuff from the top of buildings and try and hit the targets... He's also going to connect all the buildings with bridges...

I was inspired. I want to help Bob build this incredible place. It was an adventure and a half- and so close to home.

Ryan C. Kolegas

PS we'll be stopping in the Chicago land area in like two days... I'm so stoked.