State of the Week 24: Missouri

Missouri: At least we're not Kansas.

BTW, it's Missour-ee, not Missour-uh!

Missouri, are we southern? Midwesten? Not even we know!

Native St. Louisan here. Toasted Ravioli, BBQ, and Ted Drewe's frozen custard are the best damn foods on the planet.

My time spent in Columbia, Missouri, will forever be the best 4.5 years of my life. University of Missouri (despite all the recent bullshit) is a treasure of a school, and Columbia is a fantastic place to live.

Missouri is deceptively pretty. Items like Big Spring, Ha Ha Tonka, the big central lakes, and the ozarks provide quite a lot of sights.

Missouri is sometimes called the "cave state" with over 6,000 documented caves. It's the second most in the US of any state.

Kansas City and the Ozarks are my favorite places in Missouri!

Wine. Missouri actually has a great deal of wineries and is home of the first American Viticulture Area. Not something people typically think of when they hear "Missouri" but a number of regions in the state are great for wine production

Born, raised, and lived most of my life in Missouri, and I've never heard that motto. It's kind of hilarious considering how most other Missourians I know feel about healthcare.

I always felt Missouri was kind of a microcosm of the US. Liberal strongholds on the east and west borders and a lone bastion right in the middle, with lots of farmland and Republicans everywhere else.

So how do these megathreads work? AMA? I've lived in cities, suburbs, small towns, and sticks all over this beautiful little chunk of America.

Something that wasn't said in here STL has some of the best shit entertainment wise. The STL Zoo and a bunch of other stuff in that same area is amazing and I read the zoo is best in the country so there is that as well.

I did a three week, 4900 mile (7900 km) roller coaster trip at the beginning of July, and I needed to take a break for an additional couple of weeks. So I'm updating all the states whose parks I didn't mention a day at a time, starting with Missouri and then going back to Indiana and adding my posts in the order that they were added to the union.

AMUSEMENT PARKS WORTH VISITING

Six Flags St. Louis; Eureka.

The park's top attractions are American Thunder , Batman the Ride , The Boss , and Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast. The other coasters are Boomerang , Ninja , Pandemonium , River King Mine Train and Screamin' Eagle.

Worlds of Fun; Kansas City. The headline coaster are Mamba , Patriot , and Prowler. The other coasters in the park are Boomerang , Spinning Dragons and Timberwolf.

Silver Dollar City; Branson. This place is consistently rated as one of the best theme parks in the whole country, and with extremely good reason. Beautiful theming, fantastic placement in the middle of the Ozark mountains, easily some of the best theme park food you can find, super friendly employees, and phenomenal rides. After going to the park for the first time in July, my only complaints are that the ride operators could dispatch the trains more quickly, the park layout is extremely confusing to navigate, and the rides are notoriously bad for photography's sake. The headline roller coaster is easily Outlaw Run , one of my favorite wooden coasters I've ever been on. The other coasters there are Fire in the Hole , Powder Keg , Thunderation and Wildfire.

One of the oddities of the St. Louis area is The Great Divorce of 1876.

Let's go Blues.

The state fossil is a crinoid and the state mineral is galena!

So, um, Missouri is also the greatest thing since sliced bread.

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Live 30 miles east of Kansas City (the best thing about Kansas that isn't even in Kansas) in a small town.

Everyone complains that there's nothing to do here, but they don't know you're only half an hour to two hours away from being able to do ANYTHING you want! It's awesome!

Don't tell Abe about this thread.

Sorry about the Rams, guys. That seems like a pretty raw deal.

Cape Girardeau / Jackson resident, business owner and performing artist.
Fun fact, the state has no drunk in public or open container in public laws, so outside city limits you can drink roadside.

Lake of the Ozarks has over 1100 miles of shoreline, more than the state of California.

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As a reminder, any suggestions for these State of the Week threads are highly encouraged!

EDIT: By this I mean information you'd like to see, things you'd change, etc. Not which state to do next.

I will start the inevitable debate of the best BBQ joint in the state...LC's in KC

Kansas City has incredible electrical storms.

Hey! It's us!

Nigga we made it

Thank you for reading again!

Onto the flag of Missouri!

Wiki Page

Design

The design of Missouri's flag is a tiny step up from seal on a blue bedsheet background, as they got creative and threw the state seal on a horizontal tricolor of red white and blue!

Symbolism

Starting with the state seal, symbolism includes two bears on either side of the seal representing strength and bravery, a crescent moon in the seal represents the potential for growth. A helmet on the seal resembles the state sovereignty. Below the state motto "Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto" on the seal is the year '1820' in roman numerals, even though Missouri didn't become a state until 1821. There are 23 small stars in a 'cloud' at the top which resembles Missouri becoming the 24th state and the problems it faced in becoming one. Included also on the seal is the quote "Divided we stand, divided we fall" which is hilariously placed on top of a belt with a buckle resembling the state's ability to secede from the union if deemed necessary.

Onto the actually 'background' of the flag, 24 stars are in a circle formation to resemble Missouri as the 24th state, and a red-white-blue horizontal tricolor resembles valor (red), purity (white) and 'the permanency, vigilance, and justice of the state' (blue). The colors also overall highlight the French influence on the state throughout it's history.

Rating

Overall, I find Missouri as a (very slightly) relaxing change from just coat of arms on a solid color background, but it still carries the problems of having a complicated seal slapped on. Overall I give the flag a 3/10 due to its small amounts of uniqueness, even though it is just about halfway from being so much better with a redesign.

Another example of how others rated this flag is the NAVA (North American Vexillological Association) survey of US and Canadian state/province/territory flags which it sent to it's members in 2001, where Missouri's flag finished 48th out of 72 flags.

Alternatives

Missouri's flag hasn't had that many suggestions on redesign from the r/vexillology subreddit but there are a few notable favorites:

• This flag, created by u/15MinClub around a month ago simply replaces the seal with a star- a design choice he suggests every state should have to represent themselves on the full American flag

• u/Hellerick created this flag and this other variation around 2 years ago which include wavy lines taken from Jefferson City and St. Louis' flags, and a white background designed to resemble the shape of the state. Fleur-de-lis resembles the French influence whilst the variation includes a dogwood flower representing the state's tree: flowering dogwood.

• Lastly u/FlyingSpaghettiMan created this flag, also 2 years ago, which takes the crescent symbol from the seal and replaces the seal on the full flag.

Thanks again for reading and let me know your thoughts about the flag!

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Missourian by birth, I think its actually a very beautiful state, just didn't spend all that much time there. I did meet my wife in St. Louis, so it definitely was worth the time I did spend there.

Missouri also produces 70% of the nation's lead.
So if your lead-acid battery started your car this morning you are (possibly) welcome :)

Iowa's fireworks store! On I-35 the first interchange south of the border is lines with fireworks shops where Iowans go in mass around the 4th of July. Missouri's roads also suck compared to Iowa's. 
Kansas City is a very nice city, I love the WWI museum. KC BBQ is a national treasure. 
Once my family was camping in van buren county Iowa and we decided to cross the border to Scotland county Missouri because my mother wanted to check out an Amish furniture store. We stopped in Memphis, MO and amazingly after only having traveled around 30 miles the accent changed from a neutral Midwest accent to a full on southern drawl. The town also had Christmas lights on its courthouse in June. 
 Mark Twain, one of the most famous American authors was born and raised in Missouri. If you go to Hannibal you can take a tour of his childhood home. 

(Since I've seen some vacation/tourist recommendations in the thread) If anyone's ever in the KC area with some time to kill, one point of interest is the 18th and Vine ("Jazz") district which has 2 museums, the Negros League Baseball Museum and the American Jazz museum, and The Blue Room, which is a jazz club connected-ish to the Jazz museum and has great performances (despite being a "club" you can take children/family with you, my dad and I used to go before I went to college). For other educational/family stuff, we have The Nelson Atkins art museum, the Kemper Museum of Modern art, and the Union Station, which hosts exhibits and has a special science playground thing for children.

RETURN THE BOOT HEEL

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Missourian here. Please pardon our driving...carry on!

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Provel cheese DOES NOT BELONG ON PIZZA