Missouri Day 4

Mom and Dad wore the same shirt. It was not planned.

The hotel in St. Louis wasn't great, but at least it was a place to sleep. We had cereal in our room and then checked out early. We had tickets to Gateway Arch National Park, which was one of two main adventures for the day. After parking between Busch Stadium and the arch, we made the short walk over. It opened right at 9 o'clock, and we were already in line. 

The arch was awesome!

There is a large museum at the arch, and we walked through a bit of it and got the boys started on the Junior Ranger. At 9:40, we had tickets to take the tram to the top of the arch. We were assigned to tram car number 2 and lined up outside the door. When the tiny portal opened, we were shocked to see the inside of the tram. It was about 4 foot cube with 5 seats in it. We learned later, they they are called "pods," which seems much more accurate. The pods travel up the arch in 4 minutes to a height of 630 feet, which is about 100 feet higher than our trip to the top of the Space Needle. Then you climb out into a narrow hallway with wide, thin windows. There view both east and west, and they are spectacular. However, when the wind blows, as it did today, you can feel the arch sway. It was very unnerving to feel it move under your feet! It was exciting to be up there, but Seth said, "I'm going to kiss the ground when I get back down!" and we all felt the same!

The museum was huge! There was a lot to see and do.

Heading to the top of the arch.

Dax wasn't too sure about the pods. And Mark couldn't sit up straight!

It was quite the adventure going inside the arch.

Being up in the top was awesome!

We could see Busch Stadium which was our next stop.

We enjoyed the Gateway Arch.

It wasn't long until we were down as the pod gets to the bottom in only 3 minutes. Then we finished the Junior Ranger program as we wandered the rest of the museum. The ranger, upon hearing that we were from Utah, asked if we were LDS. Then he insisted on showing us the Book of Mormon printed in Nauvoo and the coins that we'd missed. We hung around the museum until our second arch adventure, which was a boat ride up the Mississippi River. 

We were excited to see the Book of Mormon printed in Nauvoo.

This is the arch from the other side.

Just down the grand staircase behind the arch we grabbed some fresh fries and a funnel cake. Our ride was at noon, and we hadn't eaten since the cereal in the hotel. The food was surprisingly good! Finally, we got aboard the boat. We rode upriver for about 30 minutes, passing several bridges and ending up at the most modern, which is called Stan Musial Bridge. Then we headed south again as far as the Poplar Street Bridge. It was a nice little ride, even though the sun was getting fierce. We enjoyed hearing the history of the area and information on the bridge, and the breeze was very pleasant.

Eating a few snacks next to the arch was neat.

We rode this steamboat down the river.

Being on the Mississippi River was amazing!

It was really windy on the way back.

There were lots of cool bridges on this ride.

As soon as we got off the boat, we made a quick trek to Busch Stadium for the Cardinals-Brewers game. We made it to our seats just in time for first pitch. There were a few exciting moments, like when the right fielder made a running, lunging catch right in front of us. We were only on the fourth row, and he ran into the wall as he made the play. Two homers landed in the section just to our right. But the sun was merciless, and most of us ended up with sun burns and near heatstroke. We are not used to this humidity! Also, the Cardinals were horrible and were down 8-0. We waited right until the end because we wanted to see Albert Pujols hit. After a lead off single and a strikeout, he came out on deck to pinch hit. But first, the right fielder was up. He grounded into a double play, and we never got to see the slugger bat. It was a disappointing ending, but we enjoyed the game and Busch Stadium.

After that, it was a long ride into Nauvoo. We arrived around 8 o'clock, and much to our surprise we were staying in a beautiful building! You can read all about that tomorrow!

We love visiting new baseball stadiums.

We were so hot! But we had a lot of fun.

Although everyone was sad not to see Pujols bat.