Gateway Arch in St. Louis

Last Thursday we left the Hannibal area and traveled to St. Louis. We spent Thursday night in the repair shop where we had an appointment on Friday to get our Norcold refrigerator recall completed. While our home was being worked on, we went to visit another house of Ulysses Grant. This home called 'White Haven' was actually the childhood home of Julia Dent Grant.

Julia's father owned this 850 acre farm and considered himself a southern gentleman who owned several slaves to work this farm. When Ulysses married Julia, he had many arguments with her father about the slavery issue. He would work the farm along side of the slaves. However, not really being a farmer, he failed at farming and took his family to Galena, Illinois where he worked for his father before the Civil War started.

We are now at the Casino Queen RV Park across the river from the Gateway Arch. We can see it from our window. Yesterday we took the metrolink over and toured the arch. We first saw a movie about the Louis and Clark expedition. Then we took the tram up to the top of the Arch.

This is what the tram car looked like.








It's more like a pod that holds 5 people. Because the arch is curved, these pods travel on a curve. They were designed by an amusement park architect. Thankfully the ride wasn't that long.


Here are some views from the top:


The Old Courthouse




Cardinals Stadium

The Eads Bridge...the first bridge in St. Louis across the Mississippi River. Its the bridge with the supports on the bottom.

Here is a final picture of the Arch as we looked at it from the Metrolink platform.



Today we are just relaxing after all the walking yesterday. I'm doing some research about our future travels and Ed is watching golf, both the LPGA's British Open and the PGA's Buick Open. He makes me dizzy with the remote going back and forth!!

Tomorrow I hope to go back over and tour the Old Courthouse. We didn't get to do it yesterday because it was raining when we finished at the Arch!!