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The Great American Road Trip - 26 - St. Louis And The Gateway Arch
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Sumiki
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The Great American Road Trip
Jun 10 2012
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We got up in Kansas City, and we thought that we might be able to hoof it over to St. Louis in time to catch the beginning of the Cardinals game. We got up too late, however, and we needed that sleep. Plus, the temperature and humidity both were going to be high. Considering these, we got a later start, eventually getting to St. Louis.
While we didn't get to see any of the game, a nice man at the gate let my dad in to get our obligatory pennant so as to further add to our already bulging collection. I had to signal to him which one was better from a distance, but we got one in the end, thanking the man who let us in for his trouble. (He thought we were kind of crazy for being on the road for so long, but I sensed that he was glad when he heard that we were heading back.)
After this, we walked over to the Gateway Arch. Its top is over 600 feet in the air, and to ascend we had to stuff ourselves into five-person balls which ascended, adjusted, and creaked its way from under the base to the very top in four minutes. In the ascension, my dad and I made various faces at a baby girl who was on the lap of one of the other folks who was in the ball with us, but we could not get any sort of reaction from her. The top, when we got out on to it, was curved along with the ceiling, so you have to walk uphill to get to the very tip-top. The windows are tiny, and everyone was leaning over onto angled railings to peer out of them. I suppose I was looking for more glass, like the CN Tower in Toronto was full of, but since it was made in the 60s, it was not. The views out, however, were stunning. You could see far into Illinois from one end and far over St. Louis and its suburbs from the other.
At the base, looking up, the view is vertigo-inducing, as is seeing the base when I leaned at the right angle when I was peering out the top. But it was getting more and more crowded as it went, and since there were no other different views to see, we headed back down.
We then went into a historic section of St. Louis, where the asphalt gives way to cobblestone, the sidewalks turn to brick, and the facades of the buildings look like old, old factory buildings. We poked around the fronts of a few restaurants before deciding on Hannegan's, where the interior was a cool change from the mugginess of the outside. We were one of the few people in there, and as such we'd get nearly immediate refills of our three lemonades as soon as we'd taken about four sips. We tried the toasted ravioli - which, apparently, is a St. Louis institution about which we were unaware - and were impressed. We had Key Lime Pie and Mud Pie after our entrees were served. The former was delicious while the latter was not nearly as big (or as good) as the massive one we got in Spokane.
Tomorrow: Lexington, KY.
