Team Robison: Saint Louis, Missouri: Gateway Arch

We decided to spend some extra money for a hotel downtown that provided snacks, dinner and a nice breakfast and which also made it possible for us to walk to the Gateway Arch. Of course, it was raining that evening, and the forecast called for thunderstorms all the next day. We decided that rain was better than thunderstorms, and we headed out toward the Arch. Right next to our hotel was the old Union Station that had been converted to a hotel. The trainyard portion was partially covered and had a few restaurants in it. After shuffling positions a bit, we decided the only way to make progress was to but Matthew in the stroller holding his black umbrella, and have one of us holding Hannah with the red umbrella. This arrangement left one of us exposed to the rain (Mark on the way in, me on the way out), but it was the only way not to crawl along at a snail's pace.

Luckily, there is a downtown "trolley" - a bus painted purple, that only cost $2 that started a block from our hotel and went right by the Arch. We arrive at the transit center where it starts, and there had just been a fight. The police were there, and I got to see one guy all bloodied up. The kids didn't notice, thank goodness, but it made us extremely wary. But our bus was sitting waiting just for us, so our timing worked out great. Unfortunately, there is tons of construction by the arch, so we had to go the longer route to get from our bus stop to a pedestrian bridge. And then of course, the South entrance that we came to was closed and we had to go around to the North entrance. We were soaked when we finally arrived. We took the elevator to the top which looked like a 50's style space pod all in white. From the top, we had lovely views of the city and of the Mississippi River. The kids had a blast looking out the little windows. There is also a free museum in the base, which we looked at briefly. All in all, we had a fun time, though we were definitely drenched by the time we got to our hotel.