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Published: July 26th 2016
Today we visited the Gateway Arch that sits on the Mississippi River, it is 630 feet tall and wide, constructed of all stainless steel. The arch took two years to construct and 13 million dollars. Once in town you have to find a public parking garage, but there are many to choose from, I would recommend that you park beside the Hilton it is a short walk to the arch. You can purchase tickets to go up into the arch for $13 or $10 if you have a National Park Pass. At the time we visited the arch there was construction everywhere taking away from the beauty of the arch, but we tried to focus on the beauty of the arch alone. We purchased our tickets and had an hour to kill, but it was very hot out so we talked the man at the door into letting us go into the building early to shop in the gift shop. Once our time was up we waited in line for our turn to go to the top of the arch. When we approached the tram (as they call it) we realized that we were going to be climbing into a small
egg shaped opening that only holds 5 people, especially alarming seeing as the size of the door opening that was only about 2x4 ft, yeah, yeah I know that is just the right size for me, but not Nate. The egg reminded us of what you would see on an old low budget sci fi movie where little green men would be stepping out, but of course we were those "little" green men. The ride took 4 minutes up and the other two people we were riding with seemed very nervous. The good things were that there is a tiny window in the door allowing you to view the interior of the arch where the workers would take stairs up. We were let off with steps to continue to the top of the arch where small windows were on each side of the arch. This I must say took a minute to adjust to as I think I had a touch of vertigo being so high up and looking down plus the area was overly crowded. I'd have to say it was reminiscent of being in an airplane with the curved ceiling and the air not quite up to par,
but once the uneasiness wore off we had great views of downtown St. Louis, Mississippi River and many beautifully built bridges. We tried to take as many pictures as we could to try to capture the moment, but I don't believe any of them do it any justice. Thankfully the way down only took three minutes and we met a couple traveling from Australia which helped distract us a bit. We then continued back to the campground as we really only wanted to see the Arch and were looking forward to some rest.
Now that we are headed in the direction of home, I have to be totally honest with everyone; I think I am starting to have a bit of the blues. I miss all of my friends so much, but I hate for the trip to come to an end. We were so busy every day trying to see everything in case we never get a chance like this again that we did not take much time to rest or most important to just BE together. I will miss spending so much time with my family and plan to continue our monthly camping trips just
as we always have until we can once again hit the road as a family again.
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omarg
Omar Galarza
Go to Pappy's Smoke House.
Hopefully you guys are still in St Louis, if you go to Pappy's Smoke house he's about 10 min from the arch westbound on 3106 Olive St. You cant go to St Louis and say you didn't eat at Pappy's.