July 2nd
Originally I hadn’t planned on going to the arch, St Louis is just not in a direct line with the rest of our trip. But Rick assumed we were and when he realized I hadn’t planned it he insisted. He said it just isn’t something we can miss. He was right. It is spectacular.
We left David’s house Friday evening and headed south. We were close enough to Louisville we wanted to swing by and see the temple there. Rick also really wanted to hear some Kentuckians speak – he likes their accent. He said is sounds sexy. Well I heard the accent alright, but to me it was far from sexy, kind of cute I guess but not sexy. Maybe we weren’t far enough south. I talked to a couple different people in Walmart in Louisville. They were really nice and did have an accent. Rick was asleep in the RV so he missed it.
The Temple was, like all temples, beautiful. It was pretty small and in a really petty little area , down kind of a country road with trees and a little river. The kids ran around a bit and we took some pictures and Rick tried to get into the church next door and then we left. We then headed toward St Louis.
As we crossed the river and the arch came into view I had to do a double take. It was amazing. I have of course seen pictures of it but in real life it is much more impessive. There were airplanes flying around it – like an air show- doing little tricks and dives and fly by’s as we crossed the bridge. As we came into the city and near the arch it became apparent the whole city had decided to come to the arch that day. It is right in downtown St Louis and it was busy. Traffic was heavy and there were orange cones blocking roads everywhere. The airshow, blocked roads and red, white and blue draped everywhere told us something was going on. St Louis must think the 2nd of July is independence day. They were having their city celebration. Maybe it went all weekend.
Anyway we were a bit nervous about finding a spot to park. Downtown cities don’t have a whole lot of ouside parking and we can’t park in a garage at least if we want to keep our AC unit on top – which we do. When we made our arch reservations the ticket lady said it came with free parking at the arch. Problem was it was a garage. They do have a rv/bus lot she told us – problem is it is under water. So we drove around a bit and found a public parking lot that was completely outside. It took a lot of careful maneuvering and several 10 pt turns but we got her in. It was $10 a space – we took up 2 spaces. $20 bucks to park was a little hard to swallow when we could park for free in the arch parking garage if we just had a car.
We parked and got out. I wanted to get back in. I think it may have been the hottest I have ever felt. And I have lived in Arizona. It was blazing hot and wet. The sun was intense and the air was thick. We walked the several blocks over to the arch. There were bands playing and food vendors set up everywhere. The airshow was still going on and people were spreading out blankets and picnics and preparing to spend the day. We walked down to the river and saw the free parking lot we could have parked in. Well we saw the tip of the sign anyway. It was covered in water. The river was very high and very fast. What kind of surprised me was to see how much debris was flowing in it. There were big logs and branches and all kinds of stuff all over the place. It looked like the log flume.
We got in the security line to get down into the arch. It felt wonderful down there. In fact Anna comlplained it was too cold. Too bad for her. Our ticket time was 3:50 so we timed it to arrive about ½ hour early. We got there about a quarter after 3:00, perfect so we thought, just enough time to go to the bathroom look at the gift shop and go it. We hadn’t realized that we had passed into the central time zone- it was only 2:15. Luckily the arch has a spectacular museum on the westward expansion. So we explored that until it was time to go up. The museum was really pretty cool. They had little dressed up dummies who would move their hands around and talk, telling a little story or history tidbit. Rachel loved them, she watched all of them a couple times. She kept trying to talk to them and would hold her hand out for them to shake. I told her several times they weren’t alive but I don’t know if she ever believed me or not. She just looked at me like I was crazy and said, “He is moving and talking mom” They were pretty life like.
As we got in line for the tram the people ahead of us had byu shirts on so Rick struck up a conversation with them about BYU. Turns out the people in front of them were members too. Kind of suprising there would happen to be 3 mormon families all in a row in the line for the St Louis arch. It was fun to talk to them. And Ryan gave them an earful all about our trip.
The little tram to the top is just that – little. There are 5 seats and they are pretty cramped. We all got in one. It was a cozy and a bumpy little ride. The top was packed, it was wall to wall people. We heard that the tickets had been sold out that day – so we knew it would be busy. We got got over to the window and looked out. It was cool. You could see everything. The airshow was still going on, it was pretty impressive to watch the airplanes fly by from the far up. We rode down and looked around a little more outside. We watched the airplanes and debated staying for the band and fireworks. The band was the Steve Miller Band which I would have enjoyed and Rick really wanted to stay for. The kids wanted to go, it was really hot, and we were a bit nervous about trying to maneuver our rv out of the city and figured after firework traffic would be a nightmare so we opted to leave. We stopped and got snow cones on the way out. Turns out getting on the freeway was a breeze. We were about 20 minutes out of town when we remembered we hadn’t stopped by the St. Louis temple as we had planned. We didn’t turn around – I was pretty disappointed we had forgotten it but we just didn’t want to go back.
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