Wednesday, September 9, 2026

The Adventures of Leonardo da Plushie

This June I went to St. Louis for summer vacation, and this time I didn't go alone! With me was my faithful stuffie of Leonardo da Vinci. He had a great time visiting some of St. Louis's museums, as well as St. Louis Pride Fest. Let's have a recap of his adventures!


First, he got to meet fellow Renaissance Man William Shakespeare! They talked about art together in very bad French.

We then went to St. Louis Pride Fest, where we saw the parade. We gave out stickers about queer people in the Renaissance, like Leonardo himself, his artistic rival and fellow MLM Michelangelo. Leonardo loved getting to celebrate being gay and making new friends.



Here we are at the Missouri History Museum, seeing a reproduction of the legendary flying machine, the Spirit of St. Louis. 



Another place we explored was Cahokia, the great city of the Mississippian Culture in southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The city flourished between the 11th and 14th centuries, a little before Leonardo's time.


The St. Louis Science Center was a lot of fun. We saw fossils (which Leonardo was the first to identify as the remains of ancient lifeforms!) and got to touch some.


We got to see Blue, a blue whale that washed up in Canada and is now helping the Royal Ontario Museum teach people about whales. Leonardo was very excited!


When Leonardo was a kid, he stumbled on a fossilized whale in a cave near his hometown of Vinci. Today, he got to point out a prehistoric whale at the museum to us.


Leonardo wanted to go on the flight simulator, but wasn't tall enough :(


However, we had a lot of fun doing engineering projects! Here we are working on a bridge.