Today I took my walk in the area of the renovated (I should say, being renovated) Grand Basin. I parked at the bottom on Grand Drive, by the golf course. You all know the spot since it is where you look across the Grand Basin, up the great Art Hill to the Museum sitting up there like a crown.
This area has been the center piece of the renovation and it is not fully finished. I was happy this morning to find no one working on THIS SIDE of the basin, so I got out and walked. They were working with bulldozers on the Art Hill side, right at the bottom by the water, building the walk way that will go round there.
Okay, now from Grand Drive (the farthest portion of the basin from the museum) they have built and finished (all but decorative planting) something so fabulous that you think you are back in 1904. The basin was drained, a new bottom put in and all the walls taken out and new ones put in. What's there now is awesome. The water if full and clean and in the narrow part of the basin (which is at the foot of Art Hill, recall, opens into a large circle) there now six fountains in the water. Two by two along the walk way in the basin itself. Each is about 6 foot in diameter and there seems to be a brass circle at water level which contains the jets for the fountain. Each fountain has 8 small water sprouts around the circle, each pushing a geyser of water about 4 foot tall. In the center is a much larger geyser sending a spray up about 15 foot. I heard on the news that each fountain has a wind censor in it and when the wind is high, as it was today, the spray is lower so as not to get the people wet who are walking on the side. Then in the center of the basin closer to Art Hill are two more fountains, a bit bigger than the 6 in the smaller part.
When finished you will be able to walk the complete circle round the whole grand basin on a lovely gravel trail with quite a few large park benches spread evenly and many many sets of steps down to the water's edge. It is just lovely.
I walked the west side, the side closest to Wash U. Fist I walked along the small part, then when I got to the larger circle of water, I turned right along the edge to a brand new bridge and up and over that, which would have taken me to the foot of Art Hill, but the bulldozers are still making the trail there, so with my bum knee I didn't try that walk.
Looking across the water the situation is identical on the other side and the bridge that was always there on the east side of the Art Museum has been fully rebuilt and looks lovely. Boats will come from the boathouse all the way to the Grand Basin like they used to when I was a kid.
This area is just awesome.
Art Hill itself needs work. It is no longer the fourth hole on the golf course and the grass is all brown and splotchy now, but I'm sure that is in the planning.
At the top (I didn't go up for a closer look), the statue of St. Louis in front of the museum has been surrounded by a platform that seems to be about 4-6 foot tall and will be a look out platform. Some other walker who had come down Art Hill and met me on the bridge said they are laying lovely tiles in this platform now and were about finished.
The whole area is like a story-book in beauty. It is just a fabulous spot.
Today was a cool and very breezy day. Of course I haven't ridden my bicycle since my operation and I miss that very much. so, I drove over to Lindell boulevard, close to Wash U. and parked across from a very shady bench along the bike trail. I sat there in that awesome morning breeze for at least two hours and watched -- oh so very jealously -- the myriad cyclists, roller bladers, joggers and walkers. Just streams of them flowing by on this lovely Saturday morning.
I have just purchased a new and much lighter bicycle and hope to be back on the trail within two weeks if I'm lucky. I'm currently riding my stationary bike twice a day for 12 minutes (will up that to 15 minutes tomorrow) and am having no difficulty with that. In many ways the stationary bike is more demanding than the regular bike. When I ride Forest Park I start at home in front of my house. But, when I ride I never pump non-stop like I do on the stationary bike. I ride, and coast and will climb a hill, but then coast down and such, so the fact that I can handle 15 minutes at a time without ceasing to pump bodes well for transferring my riding from inside my home on the stationary to our Dogtown backyard -- the lovely new Forest Park.
Opened as a city park in 1876, the same time Dogtown / Cheltenham became a part of St. Louis city, the park underwent a phenomenal building boom for the 1904 World's Fair. Certainly other things were added in the ensuing years, and the zoo dramatically improved steadily. But this current work is the most serious renovation and improvement to Forest Park since 1904.
Ah me, you just have to experience it and this great weather is such a good time.
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