Gateway Arch

No trip to St. Louis is complete without a trip to the Arch. It is really pretty awesome. It is officially the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It serves as an accent piece for all of downtown but it is really more than that. It is unique in its symbolism, its structure and its history. When you first see it, you just can't imagine that people are IN it.

The Arch was the dream of Eero Saarinen.  It commemorates President Jefferson and his Louisiana Purchase and St. Louis' role as a Gateway to the West.


The closer you get to it, the more you feel compelled to take photos of it.



I took many, many photos of it. Lucky for you, I'm too lazy to load them all into this blog post, but I'll give it a pretty good go.


The Gateway Arch is in St. Louis for a reason. St. Louis served as the last stop at a city of any size back when people were heading West. It sits right by the Mississippi River, symbolizing the gateway from the East to the West. Here are some fun facts I learned:

• It is 630 feet tall and is our tallest national monument.
• Construction began in February of 1963. Working from the two bottom legs and meeting in the    middle at the top, the last section was put into place in October of 1965. 
• The Arch weighs over 17 tons. They used 900 tons of stainless steel to build it.
• It cost $13 million to build. 
• It is really sleek and cool-looking (I added that fact myself)

It is so very photogenic! I couldn't hardly stop from taking photos as it makes just pretty much anyone feel like a professional photographer!

Isn't the simplicity of it just beautiful?!

When you get close to those big legs, you realize it is very, very large! The weird thing, though, is that there is a LOT to see underground! Yes! Underground, between those big legs, you go down, down, down. There is a museum, gift shop, place to watch a movie, etc. It just looks like the Arch is sitting in a pretty park. You don't even see the entrances down into it until you are right by those big legs. These are people heading down below. You have to go down before you can go up.

To go up inside they line you up and walk you even further underground.

You are then assigned a little door to wait by.

5 people are squished into one little pod type elevator thingy.

There is room for five bottoms to sit down, but not exactly room

for five pairs of legs. It's pretty cozy.

When the door closes, it is a see-through door. You can't see outside but you can see the stairway and mechanical equipment along the way. Seeing that stairway made gave me comfort somehow.

It is a 4 minute ride up to the top.

When you climb some stairs the last part of the way, you still don't see out.

Once in that top part of the Arch, it looks like this:

I didn't realize I took photos of so many people's bottoms.

No I am wondering how many of their photos have my hinder showing!?

Never mind....let's not think about that.

Anyway...

It takes all my courage to lean on my tummy to look out those windows.

We texted Maria from the top. 

It was mean of us as she is afraid of heights.

She told us just that text made her palms sweat.

This post is likely making her palms sweat as well!

Here, let me take you back outside for a second. This is an underside shot of those windows. 

It is a weird feeling to be able to look down at that angle.

Why would we do such a thing?

Because the view from up there is so beautiful!

You could see the City of St. Louis to the West.

 The flooded Mississippi River was to the East.

And the park was right below...straight down below....Yikes!

I was quickly ready to come back down.

On the East side of the Arch, as I said, is the Mississippi. We walked down a lot of steps to the road that runs along the river. The problem was, we couldn't get that far because the river was rising up to meet us instead. Luckily, we'd had the riverboat cruise experience on a previous visit as they'd closed down due to the flooding. The river actually looked pretty dangerous with lots of uprooted trees and such floating down.

Usually you can walk right out to that dock.

There was a lot of water!

I'll leave you with this photo of the guy who just canoed up as far as he could get.

We don't know his story but we were intrigued. The photo isn't very good but in the

far left of the photo is a duck that seemed to be his pet.

You've got to like a guy with a pet duck, don't you?

Two for One!

Ok, ok... I can't wait anymore! I  have to tell you about Saturday night of our vacation and meeting the Friend I Never Met Before.

So, Mike went to another St. Louis Blue (hockey) Game that night. I didn't go to that one as the only affordable tickets we could have purchased weren't even together. I really love Mike but I don't really love hockey so much. I had no interest in going if we couldn't sit together. It worked out well, though, because I had another plan in mind.

Do you remember AKM? Click here and you'll remember; I'm sure of it. She has been following my daughter's blog, Little Things are Big forever. When I started blogging, she began following mines as well. So, I contacted AKM because she lives in the St. Louis area. I was nervous to ask, because she is a very busy grad student, but she agreed to meet me. She and her mom both came and met me in the lobby of our hotel in downtown St. Louis. I got to meet two new friends! You can tell they are related, can't you?

It was fun to actually get to know AKM and her mom. I was rather awkward but they are nice people! It was kind of weird, though. As I told her, she knew a lot more about me than I did about her. I also wished I'd gone back and reread her interview before I met up with them as I had forgotten some of the things that I did know about her.

Nevertheless, they were both very gracious and kind. We ate dinner together at Imo's Pizza. It was my first time eating the special thin crust St. Louis Style Pizza. AKM explained that the cheese is a unique blend, different than the traditional mozarella I'm used to. It was delicious!

We visited for a long time and then I showed them our room at the hotel. I was quite pleased with our hotel room (I'll show you why another day) and thought they might like to see it.  I forgot, though, to point out one little weird thing about the bathroom in our room. Do you see anything weird?

Hint: It isn't about what you see, but rather what you don't see.

Something you might need...

Toilet paper anyone?

I had to bend down under the counter to discover 

where the toilet paper was hiding.

It was fine, once a person knew the secret, but kind of 

weird and I am guessing has led to more than one person 

feeling a bit of panic at a crucial moment.

Anyway, moving on. I didn't really mean for this post to be about toilet paper.

After a tour of our room, which didn't take too long, we went bar hopping. Not really! I was just wondering if you were paying attention. We did go to one bar, though. I suppose that is no surprise now that you know I spent last Sunday morning in the basement of a bar. This was not in a basement, though... quite the opposite.

Our hotel had a rooftop bar/restaurant. In order to go there we had to first take the elevator down to the lobby. From there, we had to have one of the elevator guys get us up there. What is an elevator guy? Well, they are guys that dress in black suits, wear ear pieces attached to coiled wires and look just like secret service men. Yes, I have seen secret service guys. The elevators there were strange anyway. They had little computer screens on the wall. It was there that you had to tell it what floor your were going to. You couldn't change your mind on the way up as there were no buttons inside. However, only the secret service guys could enter the code for that top floor.

So, with the help from men in black, we went to the top floor and spent just a few minutes up there, enjoying the view (click and wait a few seconds until you see the photo of the ballpark below). I think all three of us felt rather out of place. The people up there were mostly dressed in fancy clothes. There was loud party music going and the whole scene seemed more like something from a movie than from anything I could reference in my own life. It was fun to experience for a bit but we were all ready to leave moments after arrival.

After saying good-bye to AKM and her Mom down in the lobby, I turned around and got back in the elevator line again to go to my room. Two twenty-something beautiful girls came up beside me. I was standing there in my jeans and gray sweater. They were wearing sparkly formals. The elevator guy, who was quite pretty himself, turned to them and said, "You look really lovely." The girls smiled and thanked him. I waited a second, my idea of a comic pause, and said, "Thank you!"



It was a nice evening, though. I was pleased that AKM wasn't a serial killer or anything. Oh come on! I'm just saying what everyone else was thinking. I bet she felt the same about me!



I was sorry Maria wasn't with me as I know she would have liked to meet AKM in person also. Well, since AKM wants to one day move West, maybe she'll come here someday. AKM, you are welcome to visit us, and bring your mom along as well!

Church Under the Bar

James 4:8 

Draw near to God, 

and he will draw near to you…

 

As I said, Mike & I were in St. Louis last Sunday. We had gone through some tourist booklet, looking for a place to worship downtown. There were quite a few big churches to choose from but then we found a church called The Vintage Ten. We could tell from the website that it was a small group and that it wasn't fancy. We knew how to get there and we could even wear our jeans if we wanted to...and we did.

Let me tell you, I've never been to such a place to worship before. As we approached, I knew we were in for a bit of an adventure...

It doesn't look like an ordinary entrance to a church, does it?

Just inside the bar doors there sat a couple who greeted us warmly and 

pointed us toward the stairs.

When we got down there, we found a worship space set up in the middle of a dark basement room.

There were several rows of chairs set up.

There was coffee, cookies and water.

I saw no windows so they had some lights set up here and there.

People were friendly and kind.

Although we asked several people, we never really found an explanation for their church name.

Do you suppose the Vintage part is because it is under a bar...like vintage wine?

Maybe ten people started the church?

I just don't know.

Their regular pastor wasn't present so a seminary student was there to give the sermon.

He did a nice job.

A guy in shorts played the guitar and we knew most of the songs they sang.
It was really quite nice!

We worshiped.

We prayed.

We sang.

We rejoiced.

I kind of felt like an early Christian, or one worshiping in a

country where Christianity is outlawed. 

I knew that people walking by on the streets and even likely

the people in the bar upstairs had no idea a church

service was going on down there.

We knew they were above us, though.

Whenever someone in the bar used the restroom and flushed a toilet,

we could hear the water whooshing by in the pipes around us.

It really just added to the charm.

I snapped a photo of the walls when I used the restroom.

It kind of gives you a sense of the space there.

So today, while I worship in our pretty building with windows and fresh air,

I will think of the people at Vintage Ten and know that they are also

worshiping the same God at the same time, just in a different location.

Baptismal Anniversary and Vacation Agenda

Today is Mike's Baptismal Anniversary!

What? You don't know what I am talking about?

Well, in our family we celebrate birthdays just like everyone else does. We ALSO celebrate baptismal anniversaries. In fact, we think the day we were baptized into God's family is even more important than the day we were born. It is a day when we celebrate God giving us new life as Christians, forgiving our sins and making us fresh and clean. It is a seriously paramount event!

Seriously paramount or not, we have some fun with it. We try to find gifts that really have nothing to do with baptism, but give them some kind of religious meaning. For instance, one year Mike gave me a sprinkler. That was kind of funny because we had many discussions about baptism, should it be by immersion or sprinkling?  Another year I gave him a package of three pairs of undershorts. It's obvious, isn't it? Three for the Trinity (Father, Son  and Holy Spirit.... central to Christianity) and white to resemble the purity we achieve through the forgiveness of our sins. 

I struggled a bit with a gift idea this year but I came up with three...again, representing the Trinity. 

So, new LIFE given by the DIVINE gives us a HEAVENLY hope for eternal joy (oh shoot, I should have added an Almond Joy Bar) with him!

Ha ha ha!  I'm so clever.... or pitiful, depending on your point of view.

Now, I've not forgotten that I have oodles of vacation stuff to tell you. First, I want to document our agenda. You likely don't care what we did day by day but I'm afraid if I don't document it, I will forget something later on. So...

Wednesday April 23 - We drove to Denver, stopping in Cheyenne to wander around the mall a bit. Mostly we were killing time so we didn't arrive in Denver during rush hour traffic.

Thursday - We flew out of Denver, arriving in St. Louis early afternoon. We bought tickets on MetroLink (light rail) for a week of rides on their train/bus system. We enjoyed a full week of no worries about driving or parking a car!   We ate at Mike Shannon's (he used to be a Cardinal player then announcer). We'd eaten there on previous trips and remembered it to be a family type of restaurant, casual and moderately priced. It was loaded with memorabilia and was really a baseball museum. It was fun to wander around and see all the things on the walls. When we entered this time, it all felt different. It was very upscale and  the menu pricing was very, very different. The food was delicious but we both felt it was all wrong. Finally, we asked. It turns out that the restaurant we remembered had burned and the new Mike Shannon's was a very different kind of restaurant. It was nice but we felt kind of sad. We shook it off, though and then we attended a Blues Game that evening.  They won! Mike smiled! 

Friday we went to Union Station, an old train yard turned mall. Later we walked down to the Arch but the lines were long so we moved on to LeClede's Landing. Then, we went to tour the Edward Jones Dome (where the St. Louis Rams play during football season) and ended up at a Robotics Competition. MORE ABOUT THAT LATER! Friday evening we attended a Cardinal's Baseball Game, the first of 5.  MORE ABOUT CARDINALS LATER!

Saturday we went for a long walk, in the rain, to tour the Campbell House. When we got there they said their staff needed a lunch break and could we please return in an hour. Seriously? We'd checked ahead and their site said they were open but oh well, we'd only walked an hour or so in the rain to get there. We went back to Union Station and then later attended another Cardinals game in the rain....brrrr...MORE ABOUT THAT LATER AS WELL. Saturday evening Mike went to another Blues game, which they won. He's happy that they are now in the playoffs. I met with a friend I'd never met before. Yes, you read that right. MORE ABOUT THAT LATER.

Sunday, we walked to a bar and went to church in the basement. DEFINITELY MORE ABOUT THAT LATER! Sunday afternoon, you guessed it, another Cardinals game.  Sunday evening I think was when I went swimming in the pool featured in the movie, UP IN AIR. I didn't see George Clooney there, though. Mike rested as he wasn't feeling great...head cold.

Monday we toured Busch Stadium. Yep, MORE ON THAT LATER. Later we toured the ARCH, definitely more on that later. After the ARCH we toured an old courthouse that had some interesting history. I'll tell you more about that later as well. Monday night was another Cardinals Game.

Tuesday we rode a trolley to tour City Museum. That was one of the weirdest places EVER! You'll hear about it again as well. I took MetroLink back to Union Station while Mike rested, still not feeling great. We attended another Cardinals Game that evening. Yadier Molina batted a ball right to me. More about that later as well!

Wednesday we rode MetroLink back to the airport. It was a hot day!

After some delays, we returned to Denver. It was a cold day! Due to bad roads and accidents all over Denver, we stayed another night and drove the 4 hours to home the next day. 

Can You Guess Where We Have Been?

So, as I said, Mike and I just returned from vacation. We had a great time! A lot of you can guess with no hints as to where we've been but I'll give some photo hints anyway.

Let me show you our hotel room. It is the bottom four windows on the right. You can see our lampshade in the 3rd window from the right. Can you tell where we were staying?

Here, let me pull back just a bit...

You still can't tell? I will pull back further yet and see if you can figure it out. Can you still see our hotel in the center of the photograph?

Aaaaah, now do you know?

Do you see that weird thing in the background on the right?

Yep, we've been in St. Louis, Missouri.

Why?

Well, if you've forgotten, just click here.

Oh, I have sooooo much to talk about!

I took over 500 photos!

Lucky for you all, most of them aren't very good so I won't post them.