Gateway to the West – The Arch in St Louis

#vanlife .

From Kentucky we passed through Illinois heading to the Gateway Arch in St Louis, stopping at the Ferne Clyffe State Park.

We could see our destination from quite a ways off as we drove into St Louis.

However following any Nav systems instruction can be a challenge – even more so when you enter the downtown of any city. She had to recalculate several time as lanes we thought went straight turned left or right. She did finally place us at a perfect parking lot a short walk to the Arch. It was an open air lot with no height restrictions. There were a few issues though. One was the sign that said No RVs. Another was the sign that said no Arch parking. The parking lots was at the Basilica of St Louis.

We decide to stop in, see the Basilica and light a candle for friends and relatives that are no longer with us.

From there we took the short walk to the Arch and it is impressive. We bought tickets for the next tram up and had just enough time to get to the entrance under the arch. Little did we know that entering did not put us on the tram. In a more Disney like set up we were moved to a staging area and shown some picture of people at the Arch. Then we moved to a spot for a video that had a psychedelic 60s feel. We moved to the entrance to the tram where we waited – and watched more pictures flash on the doors to the tram. Finally the doors open and watched the people coming down get off. Looking in we realized why they asked if you afraid of confined spaces.

Luckily there were only 4 if us in the 5 person pod.

The top area was also tight but there are some great views from the tiny windows.

When we reached the bottom we headed for the museum only discover it was closed. We did catch the movie about the Arch construction. Building it was impressive but what impressed me the most was that no one was killed during construction. Growing up in a construction family I recall that construction workers deaths on large projects was not uncommon.

Since they are redoing the museum I suspect they will soon redo the movie as well. They had far too many sections with epic music and slow moving cranes. Movie viewers of today (including me) expect a much faster pace. Also we noted there were a number of scenes that showed workers smoking. Lately it seems smoking (cigarettes – not that other stuff) is so taboo most bad guys in shows do not even smoke anymore.

When we headed for the parking lot we were relieved to see Sparty was waiting for us. We started him up and headed out of the city paying careful attention to our Nav systems directions.  Having crossed the Mississippi and seen the Arch, we were officially in the west.

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