Missouri

HIP HOPS – For Homer Simpson, it would be heaven. The world’s largest brewery, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery at 12th and Lynch Streets in St. Louis, provides tours of its historic downtown facility, including a glimpse of the Clydesdales, some sips of their famous lager, and more history than you can soak up with a bar towel. Find out more at www.budweisertours.com/toursSTL.htm.

A PIECE OF AMERICANA – Drive down Main Street, appropriately, to Joplin City Hall, and take a look at “Joplin at the Turn of the Century,” the last large mural done by the quintessentially American artist Thomas Hart Benton. The 5-by-14-foot painting fully displays Benton’s flowing, vivid lines and deeply-felt appreciation of everyday life.

SHE CAUGHT THE KATY – See what train travel was like in another era at the Katy Depot Railroad Heritage Site (the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad was nicknamed “the Katy”) in Sedalia. Originally one of the largest depots in the central U.S., the building was abandoned by the railway in 1983 and renovated as a heritage site. It now takes visitors through the life and times of the great railroads and the people who worked for them.