The entire trip, Josh kept trying to cheer me up by telling me how warm it was in St. Louis. "It's 73 degrees in St. Louis right now!" he said as we froze in the Chicago wind. Then we got to St. Louis, after hours of driving (by Josh), went to the temple (#43!), came out, and it had SNOWED!
It was still beautiful:
But even the springtime flowers were frozen:
And our car was covered:
We had a quasi-treacherous drive to our hotel, which was close enough to walk to the Gateway Arch (we didn't of course):
The view from our room the next day
I was feeling a little sick (and sick of the traveling pace) so we spent the evening in the hotel. Josh tried to go out and get food but most places were closed (either due to weather or poor business planning). Downtown St. Louis isn't really known for its food, so there were slim pickings (we may or may not have eaten gross wings from Hooters).
We spent the last day of our trip at the Arch. It was ridiculously busy. In fact there was a long line at one leg of the Arch (because you have to go through a metal detector). We were worried because we were going to miss the outdated documentary about how they did the construction! So I told Josh to scope out the other side in case it was a shorter line. He texted me a few minutes later and said, "Line is shorter! Get over here now!" I ran, but it was more of a shuffle because I was wearing boots and holding my phone. For whatever reason, a girl took one look at me and thought I'd be a great candidate to take her tourist picture. "No! I can't! I'm sorry!" I yelled over my shoulder as I ranshuffled to Josh. Quick tip: Buy your Arch tickets ahead of time because they sell out. When we were there, they sold out at 12:30 and began turning people away. You could still see an outdated documentary about how they built the Arch, but really, why would you visit the Arch and not go to the top?
I guess you could see the museum, but. . .
Okay, it wasn't so bad. It was clean and only mostly racist. But we were there to go to the top of the Arch!
First, you line up according to the time on your ticket. Then they give you plastic cards with numbers on them:
Then you wait around for half an hour, only to line up outside of numbered doors:
When the doors open, you see that the tram to get to the top is shaped more like individual eggs:
Then you get in and are all squished together, 5 people to a pod:
When you get to the top, it pretty much looks like this:
The rectangle behind us is a window. This is what they look like from the outside:
There isn't a ton to see, but it's pretty cool to be so high. When you get bored with looking out of the tiny windows, you line up in a tiny hallway and wait for people to come up in their egg pods. As you can imagine, things get pretty cramped:
After the Arch we went on a riverboat tour on the Tom Sawyer:
It was a little cold:
The backside of "The Captains' Return," a statue of Lewis & Clark (with their trusty dog, Seaman) near the same spot where L&C returned from their trek west. Who knew they could walk on water?
(Actually, the statue was specifically designed to handle being immersed in water when the Mississippi River floods, which happens every spring in St. Louis).
(Actually, the statue was specifically designed to handle being immersed in water when the Mississippi River floods, which happens every spring in St. Louis).
A Hobotown
An electricity plant built in 1904
And some bridges
It was a nice ending to our 2,000 mile (seriously), church history, temple-going road trip! It's also going to be the last trip we take for awhile. I don't get a break in August like I normally do because I start working at private practice doing assessments in July. In the future, some time, we will go to the Vancouver temple (maybe for a long weekend), but we have no plans for that now.
One last look at the arch
