Gateway

Our visit to St Louis was mostly for the Gateway Arch. We got there about 3:00 (Central) and grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby sidewalk restaurant area - touristy, but close. We got 5:45 tickets for the South Tram, went through security, and entered the large area beneath the arch with a museum and gift shop. It was hot, and the airconditioned area was crowded with others waiting for their tram ride.

The main display in the museum was on Lewis and Clark. Each display had a journal entry by someone in the expedition and a large photo of the area referred to in the journal. The first thing that struck you was what poor spellers they were! But even with their limited command of the written language, they referred to the French guide's Native wife as Sah-kah-gar-wea, not the "Sacajawea" pronunciation commonly adopted later. Whatever the pronunciation, it's clear she was more than just a tag-along wife especially in their writings..

Is there a bad picture of the arch? It's design is so simple and elegant, you take the engineering involved in its construction for granted. The movie shown in the museum area about the construction was particularly proud of the fact that no one was killed during the construction, a feat we decided was because so many of the iron workers looked so mature. Applying all that experience had to be good.

We found, at about 5:30, that people lined up regardless of when their ticket was for, but we were still sorted out by our ticket time. Much like a Disney ride, you're distracted during your standing wait by lining up and moving to a new area a few times. As accessible as the museum had been it was clear that the arch itself wasn't when the only way down to the trams was stairs.

The "pod" itself was a hoot, rounded with 5 seats in a tight arc. We noted that at first it lookes like a large toilet. The doors are about 4' high, but fortunately had 4 small windows that looked out on the inside of the arch and a long stairway during ascent and decent. Otherwise, it would have been quite a claustrophobic ride for me!

The top was pretty stunning - a small area, as you'd imagine, with tiny windows that looked out on either side. But the most amazing thing was the sound. The area was packed with people and they were all shouting to each other! Yeah, yell louder - then they'll hear you!

Photos were so-so - it was a very hazy day, but it was fun to look down into the baseball stadium at the start of the game. The old courthouse was also very picturesque from above and below.

Our "down" pod ride was with 2 teen brothers and their teen German exchange student. This was his last excursion before heading home and he seemed to be having a great time.

We stayed in one more Hampton Inn and headed out early Sunday. With a stop for lunch in Indianapolis, we were still home by about 5:30 (Eastern.) Rikki was still boarding with the vet, but Rudy proceeded to scold us for daring to leave, even though we heard he got excellent service. Drew had been to all these states as a kid, but I added Wisconsin, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas to my list of "previously just flown over."

We did really well, for all this in just a week and a weekend, but the poor Jetta had a nervous breakdown after we crossed the Ohio line and the "check engine" light clicked on. Apparently 3400 miles was a bit much for it - we'll find out tomorrow when the Volkswagen service department gives us the $estimate$. Even with the price of gas (over $3.00 most of the time) it was still cheaper than flying and we got to watch the prairies and the mountains roll out ahead of and behind us. Hopefully we can do this again soon!