Joel D: The "Quik-Trip" to Gateway Arch

National Park Número Uno!!!

After the "radical reorientation" of our lives, W&C and I decided that we will try to get to as many national parks as we can before they "fly the coop". It's gonna be our thing. Well, this summer was already pretty full, but thankfully, there is one national park just outside the Illinois on the western bank of the Mississippi River. The Gateway Arch! And I learned that at 91 acres, it's also the smallest national park in the entire US. I didn't want to take any additional time off work, so we planned to make the trek to St Louis over a standard weekend ... 4.5 hours drive down on Saturday, then 4.5 hours back the next day. Not my first choice in terms of schedule, but necessary. It was the first "vacation" for just the three of us, and we needed to start making new memories.

We packed the car on Friday night and left as early as well could on Saturday morning. We drove straight to the City Museum, which is a re-purposes industrial building in the heart of downtown St Louis that has been turned into, for lack of a better term, a 4+ story playground. Seriously, it's the coolest thing ever. We got there around noon, and we didn't leave until they close at 10pm. Tunnels, slides, ladders, secret passageways ... you name it, they have it, in terms of playground equipment. And it's all inside. Oh, except the rooftop. You can take an elevator to the 10th floor and then go out on the roof. And there's an entire other playground up on the roof, including a full size school bus that literally stretches out over the street! There's a ferris wheel up there, plus two old water tanks that you can climb around on. And my personal favorite, a 30-foot slide that they can call "The Mantis" (because there's a giant welded sculpture of a praying mantis that forms the tower for the slide).

After we stayed as late as we could there, we drove to a local KOA where we rented a cabin for a night. That was perfect for a quick trip like this. We didn't have to worry about setting up a tent of cooking or anything. We literally just pulled our bedrolls out of the car, took them inside, and sacked out. Also, there was a small air conditioning unit, so none of us had trouble sleeping in the muggy August heat. It was a terrific value! We will definitely do the "KOA cabin camping" thing again!

Sunday morning we woke up and ate at McDonald's. W&C absolutely love Mickey D's. We didn't have to go there, but that's where they wanted to go, so we did. Then we made out way downtown to do the Gateway Arch. And I have to say, the Gateway Arch is incredible! As an engineer, I was completely fascinated! And if you haven't gone, you really should do it at some point in your life. I wasn't prepared for how small the compartments of the elevator were. There were five people crunched into that little round room. [I snapped a photo of W&C in the model that they have in the lobby area so that you know what you're getting yourself into! See below.] Anyhow, the Gateway Arch was a smashing hit with all three of us.

After we came down, we had some time to kill before our river tour, so we got ice cream at a local food truck and walked along the river. The steam boat river tour in St Louis is also amazing. W&C were kind of tired by then, but I was completely fascinated. The tour guide was particularly good, I think. He included a lot of details about the history of St Louis that I didn't know before. The most important factoid is that St Louis sits (essentially) at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and it is the oldest continually-inhabited urban area in North America. Which makes sense, when you think about it. Also, there are lots of interesting bridges in St Louis where engineers tried out new designs and support mechanisms. Extremely cool.

We headed home on Sunday afternoon after the river tour. It was a tiring weekend, but well worth it. All three of us definitely liked St Louis as a city, and we said that we definitely want to come back again to explore the city some more. I would be especially interested to tour the old City Courthouse and the Cathedral.

One national park down, 62 to go!