Gatewat Arch - St. Louie

I got home from a week at girls camp 4pm on Saturday, threw some clothes in a suitcase, repacked the car and we left Sunday morning at 7am to head to Nauvoo for Britt and Derek’s sealing. Since we typically stop at Des Moines first, I-35 is the preferred, yet utterly boring route of choice. This trip Nauvoo, ill was our first stop so we headed east on I-10 to Baton Rouge and then headed north on I-55 through Memphis and up towards St. Louis(which I highly recommend, beautiful drive). We stopped in St. Louis and went up in the Gateway Arch. The girls loved it. They plastered their faces to the tiny windows towering 630 feet above the park below. Jared and both went as kids. We joked on the way up that things that seemed really awesome as a kid were disappointing in adulthood. However, the view from the arch was just as breathtaking as it was 15 years ago.
If you have never been, we highly recommend it. The arch, under the National Park Service jurisdiction, still keeps it 1960’s retro charm. You walk to the center of the arch, looking up as this massive stainless steel structure sways in the Midwest wind and there begin the downward journey into something that reminded me more of an underground bunker than a national monument. Through the metal detectors and security guards you enter into a massive room beaneath the arch. They have an excellent westward expansion museum (also located underground). From there you continue down another ramp, deeper into the earth and again take a flight of stairs one more story down. In front of you are stand retro space age looking doors and they open to reveal these small sea green, egg shaped elevators with five small metal seats (it seriously looks like something out of Austin powers). The elevators are about 4x4x4. You cram 5 people (in our case 7, since our kids sat on our lap) into the green eggs, the doors close and you quickly start the 630 foot assent to the top. There is no air conditioning or air circulation in the small elevators so pray that no one stinks or is claustrophobic and has a panic attach.

The view from the top is amazing. From one side you overlook the Mississippi. From the other you gaze across the city and the baseball stadium. And then one more awkward ride back down with strangers you don’t know practically sitting on your lap. Erin gets motion sick, but thankfully she didn’t puke.


We then went walked over to The Old Cathedral. You can tour it, but it’s also still a functioning church. I would have liked to tour more of it, but when we walked in Erin yelled, “Hey this is cool!” and everyone praying turned around, so we just admired the tooled limestone structure from the outside.