We started the day with a trip to the St. Louis Temple. Jane, the GPS, couldn't find the address and she had to navigate through some detours and construction but she got us there close enough for us to recognize Moroni from the freeeway and we completed the navigation ourselves. Excellent plan to build temples close to the freeway!
The St. Louis temple is one of the larger temples. It is really beautiful. In the celestial room, there is a chandelier, as there is in most celestial rooms of the temple. This one was a teardrop shape. They used small pieces of crystal and how they got it to look like rounded edges, I'll never know. It was really unique. When Eileen was in the baptristy, one of the temple workers asked her last name. She told him Tracy. He already knew that she was from Sacramento. He asked her if she knew Dale Tracy. She answered in surprise that he was her Grandpa! Apparently, he had worked with Chris in Grass Valley and they were good friends. Small World!
After the temple, we decided to go back to the hotel and change into walking shoes and go exploring down by the arch. I could have planned our time better, but just didn't know. I had prepurchased tickets to the top of the arch thinking that would save us time. If you come to St. Louis, don't bother doing that. It isn't worth it. Our tickets were for 6:00 pm and although it saved us standing in a line, we had to wait until 6 when we could have been up in the arch a couple of hours sooner. It was okay, though, we found things to do.
Eileen took some great pictures of the Gateway Arch, AKA Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. This hotel has a much faster internet and I can download more pictures for the blog, so enjoy. The Arch is 630 feet tall and is the tallest man-made National Monument in the U.S. It is right on the edge of the Mississippi River. There is a large park surrounding the arch and the same shape is used throughout the park. The inception of the arch and surrounding park were in 1933. It was completed and dedicated in 1965. It was built as a memorial to Thomas Jefferson in recognition of the Louisiana purchase and the expansion of the U.S. into the west. It is truly awe inspiring to gaze up at the arch.
There is a really nice museum inside that tells the history of the United States, specifically the expansion into the west. There are lots of displays that come to life and tell a story. Talking toys are not one of Eileen's favorite things and it is slightly creepy to watch a static statue come to life and start talking. Still, it was a very clever way to tell the story. Particularly covered were the Louis and Clark expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. Their story is fascinating.
There were also several displays of things that would have been found in the culture of settling the west.
After we had thoroughly explored the museum--and the gift shop! We decided to go outside and spend some more time in the park since we still had over an hour to wait until our timeslot to go up in the arch. Lo and behold, Spiderman came to visit!
The park is extensive and includes ponds, wooded pathways, picnic areas, large swaths of grassy areas, running paths, etc. Unfortunately, it has been a dry year and there are lots of brown patches in the grass.
Finally, we decided to go inside and get in line. People are fun to watch and talk to, so even though the line took over 30 minutes, there was always entertainment. Then, it was our turn. There were 5 of us to get into car #1.
We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the cars. Trust me when I tell you they are small. The door is 4' tall. Besides Eileen and I, there were 2 large men and 1 very large man that fit in that car. I had to cross my legs to fit on the chair in the corner. I didn't have to duck my head inside the car but believe me, it was close quarters. The design of the tram is pretty ingenious. They couldn't use a standard elevator design as that could not accommodate the curve. So, they used a combo elevator/tram/roller coaster design. The cars rotate so that the occupants are sitting straight up the whole way. It is only a 4 minute ride, so it was all fine. Then, we were at the top. 
The windows are on a tilt so that you can see the ground. It was spectacular. We spent about 20 minutes in the viewing area just taking it all in. We decided we had seen it all and it was time to give some other visitors a chance. We headed down and here is coincidence #2. We were lined up for car #5 going down. In car #4, was a woman I had seen at the temple this morning. Not only that, she and her husband sat next to us at one of the shows in Nauvoo. We struck up a conversation and thought it was pretty coincidental that we would be together in 3 places at the same time!
That arch is awesome! I didn't know it was a symbol of western expansion, neat. The temple there is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThank you for describing your experience so well! I feel like I was there! Great pictures, too.
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