Under the Arch

Our drive to St Louis went smoothly right until the point where we had the arch in view. As we were crossing the bridge over the Missouri River we saw signs saying the exit the GPS was advising us to take was under repair and closed. Ok no problem, the GPS is normally smart enough to handle something like this. Well that was not the case this time.

We began a 15-20 minute ordeal where the GPS was literally sending us in circles. When it started taking us away from the arch back across the river we decided to switch over to Cindy’s phone temporarily for navigation. The route we eventually took to get to the parking garage near the arch was very obtuse but at least we got there.

The last bit of aggravation was the way we approached the parking garage was through the nearby restaurant/entertainment district. The main street there is an ANCIENT looking brick street. It looks like it was never ever touched since it was installed 100 years ago. The “road” looks more like rolling hills with all sorts of hills and valleys. I was expecting the Prius to bottom out several times as we creeped across it.

Finally we got parked and started walking towards the arch which is located inside of a beautiful park area. The weather was beautiful with the temps in the 70’s with what felt like no humidity. Cindy was amazed at the visual as we approached the massive arch. It was just so visually impressive with the smooth, clean lines of the arch cutting into the clear blue sky.

The arch visitor center is a HUGE underground facility under the monument. After clearing the metal detectors we headed down into the main lobby. Luckily a Monday afternoon in September is a decent time to visit the arch, there weren’t a ton of people there.

I bought us tickets to ride to the top of the arch. While we were waiting for our time slot to be called for loading we walked around and checked some stuff out. As we were, an interesting couple was standing in front of one of the displays. The woman, who was in good shape and obviously did not have English as her native language, asked me if I could take a picture of her and her boyfriend/husband. The man was short but powerfully built. Cindy and I speculated on their nationality. She guessed maybe Greek or Albanian. I personally had no idea.

Well ironically we wound up getting paired up with this same couple in the cramped car on the ride to the top. On the ride we discovered the couple were Italians from Rome, I never would have guessed that.

The cars you ride in are not only cramped but very old looking. The reason is they are by my math almost 50 years old since the arch opened back in 1965. At least they apparently keep them maintained. In fact the north tower trams were closed for repair/renovations for several months. We found out from a park ranger up top that the entire arch grounds are undergoing renovations.

After the roughly four minute ride to the observation area we emerged. The triangular area looks odd if you never saw it before. Basically you lay across the angled, carpeted area to peer out the small windows on either side. The views from 600 plus feet up are really beautiful. It wasn’t windy yesterday unlike my first time to the arch where I could feel a slight sway at the top. Cindy thought being up at the top of the arch was very, very, cool.

After spending maybe 15-20 minutes up there we lined up to head back down. In the car this time we were paired with some people from Boston that Cindy good naturedly ribbed about the Patriots losing to the Dolphins on Sunday. Once we got down we walked through a large museum that was about the early days of westward expansion and how St. Louis was an integral part of it. After a stop in the gift shop we headed back up to ground level.

Before leaving I had Cindy take a picture of me doing an elbow lever in front of the arch. It feels like an elbow lever will be the bodyweight exercise pose for this trip. You may recall that during one of my western trips years ago I was doing L-sits along the way.

After the arch we ate lunch in the bumpy road area that we drove through. The place we ate was called Show Me’s. It looked like a big drinking/party place if you visit it later in the day. At lunch however it was nearly empty. We sat in the outdoor beergarten overlooking the Missouri River and had it entirely to ourselves. The place evidently has a tradition of people writing odd things on dollar bills and then sticking them to the walls and ceiling. There literally had to be several thousand dollars stuck all over the place.

We still had something like 260 miles to drive to get to our final destination of Kansas City. It’s an odd thing when you use sentences like “we only have 250 miles to go” like that is a drop in the bucket. The reality was by the time we got later in the day the drive was feeling long. By the time we stopped we had logged something like 1450 miles in the span of two days. We had already seen and done enough that it felt like we had been on the road for much longer, it was weird.

There was no sight seeing needed last night although we did walk up to the top of the hill and take some cool sunset pictures of the Royals and Chief’s stadiums which were practically next door. We stayed at a Sheraton which was nice except for some odd annoyances like missing a hair dryer in the room and only three pillows for a king sized bed.

When we were eating dinner last night we were reviewing our itinerary. I was glad we did. Cindy had misread the trip plan I made. She did not realize we were staying two nights in Colorado Springs and three nights in Durango. She thought it was one night at the one place and two nights at the other.   As a result she misbooked the hotel in Durango. Luckily a quick phone call shifted and extended our Durango stay.

We are in the midst of a long drive on I-70 across Kansas with Colorado Springs in our sights. The plan is to get a good nights rest and fill our Wednesday with the challenging Manitou Springs climb followed by more site seeing.