St. Louis, MO: September 1-3, 2018 - Catenary Arch

While planning the Clarksville trip, I realized that the Labor Day weekend that would follow, thanks to some lucky scheduling at my work, would be my last opportunity for a long while to take any kind of extended-stay vacation, so I of course made the choice to go big or go home.  I've had my eye on St. Louis for quite a long time - ever since I got to Louisville, really.  It's got a lot of great sights to see, and it's within range that cost-wise, it was totally doable, but it's just far enough away that seeing any sights and making the trip count at all would require three days/two nights, I figured.  And while I'm sure there were times where I could have made the trip happen over the years prior to this, Labor Day 2018 just felt like the right time.

Also, I did something kind of novel and actually 1) planned and 2) followed through with a plan to see as many of the city's attractions as I could.  I made a map.  I made a list.  I made a freakin spreadsheet.  I was gonna do the thing right.  This made for some fairly packed days, of course, but I say it was worth it - I squeezed the orange that is St. Louis for as much juice as I could.

It took me longer than I care to admit to put the 2-and-2 together of realizing that the hotel's check-in time did not have to dictate when my trip began.  That is to say, I was totally free to visit an attraction before checking in Saturday afternoon.  I know, revolutionary right?  So, the first spot to hit, after the 4-hour drive Saturday morning, was the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

I used Wikivoyage yet again for the planning of this excursion, and this was hailed as a "must-see", so I decided I must see it.  It was worth the seeing!  The indoors part just past the ticket counter was actually fairly small; of course, most of the garden was outdoors.

HOWEVER.  There was something else going on that I noticed as I approached the gate.  I had inadvertently arrived on...wait for it...the opening of the Japanese Festival, which commingled scores of people in cosplay in with the rest of us, an extra section to the food area for, mainly, sushi, as well as certain performers and booths set up mostly around the entrance and nearby areas that mercifully thinned out as you explored the garden further.  Still, not what I was expecting.

First, I made my way to the CLIMATRON:

which is just a great name for anywhere.

Made my way around, lookin at some plants:

There were many plants.

I think to make this part of the blog bearable to all readers other than myself, I'll cut to the highlights of each exhibit, rather than detailing all of them.  There was a LOT to that place.

Here is near the Chinese Garden:

With some rock that almost certainly is the same type as in the Mountain of Accumulated Excellence from China Part I:

The (of course) Japanese Garden:

The super cool modern Rose Garden:

The Henry Shaw House & surrounding grounds:

The Sachs Museum:

And these miscellaneous places:

Phew!

So, I had planned on maybe eating at the garden, but with the festival my food options were sort of overrun, and I was already a little behind my spreadsheet-based schedule at that point, so I declined to do so.  I did, however, check out the Japanese food options, and honestly the area reminded me of every rickety small-town food fair I've ever been to:

So, hungry as I was, I took off to the hotel, which was actually a really a great find.  The place was 8 minutes from downtown St. Louis, but was also very reasonably priced, and the room itself was great - a step up from even a Days Inn or the like, for a comparable expense.  It was technically in Illinois, which perhaps is how they get away with it.  Just over the river.

After checking in and dropping my stuff off, I quickly ran by a fast food place before heading to what I had hoped would be my afternoon destination, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery!  Yes, yes, Budweiser isn't the most sophisticated of drinks, but it is almost certainly the most famous beer at least in this country, and with a tour that cost nothing dollars to go on, my interest was piqued.

Sadly, my shortly-after-3:00PM arrival time was too late in the day to secure a spot on a tour, and I would have to come back the next day.  I got a Budweiser Select, as I am a fancy pants, from their Biergarten to console myself, then left to go to some contingency destination.

I had allowed for these reschedulings, however, and picked a few places that could be visited any time for a low cost to the trip (which essentially means as a factor of time, money, and distance).  For this afternoon, I first hurried over to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which was well worth it.  I only got about a half hour there, but it was enough time to see the place, which was easily as impressive as many of the grandest Cathedrals I've seen in all my years of Europe-traipsing.

A service was on the verge of starting as the time neared 5:00 PM, so I exited the building, which also looked neato from the outside:

For my next contingency, I picked Lafayette Park, a big square jobber a few blocks in length on each side somewhere in the vicinity of a quasi-ritzy neighborhood.  This was one of the places touted on Wikivoyage as a place to see, but honestly, despite being a very nice park, it's not something one would ever like, travel to St. Louis specifically to see.  That said, here's what it looked like:

And this was the surrounding neighborhood, which reminded me a bit of Old Louisville:

Next, I ventured at last into the city proper, landing first at CityGarden, a park with wacky zany statues and fountains for children to play in:

A few blocks to the east, I finally saw it:

That blessed arch.  Now, while my Schedule accounted for going up in the arch the following morning, I saw no reason that I couldn't meander around the surrounding National Park that evening, which is by the way both the smallest national park, and the most recently christened, at least as of this writing.

That building in front, by the way, this courthouse:

is where the infamous Dred Scott case began its life.  History!

The arch is LARGE.  I keep finding this out about places, like the Eiffel Tower. It is the tallest man-made monument in the Americas and probably the tallest parabola in the whole dumb universe.

Actually, it's not a parabola.  It's a catenary arch.  You find that factoid out pretty quick and pretty repeatedly when you visit and read through what they have to say about it.  A catenary is the shape naturally made when a cord of some sort is suspended by only the two endpoints and allowed to drop in the middle.  The Gateway is flipped, of course, and bulged out at the bases to make sure it, you know, doesn't collapse.  But more on that when I go up into it on Sunday.

At the base is the entrance to the ride up as well as the museum that tells all about it:

Again, spoilers for the following day.

Some scenes from the park, with views of the STL skyline, which is not bad:

I was making my way to this bridge, the Eads Bridge, because I was told you could get the best views of the arch/skyline at sunset from it, so I had everything carefully planned and timed.

But I must have been the only one to hear about this photo op, as I was the only creature on the full, entire length of the bridge, excluding the occasional passing car:

Nevertheless, I snapped as much as I could of the dang ol' sunset:

And this gazing-down-main-street shot within the city:

Then made my way back to my car and to the hotel.

Here's another neato shot of the arch the next morning as I got in line to get my ticket:

Got there at 8:00 AM on a Sunday, which I figured for sure would beat the crowds.  It kind of did, but I made a miscalculation of a different sort: while the place itself opens at 8:00, the first ride up doesn't happen until 9:00.  Pushing things back that much would have totally jumbled my day, so I made a switcheroo - I got a ticket for 6:05 PM and kept the rest of the day as planned.

With a little bit of time to kill, I walked around some more of downtown that I hadn't been able to get in the night before, including this church:

Which of course I couldn't tour because I'd chosen the one place that early Sunday morning was not a time that beat the crowds.

Then I saw, of course, Busch stadium:

And this entertainment complex across from it:

Hmm...a sports mascot of a Cardinal...a city named after Louis...it's just slightly off.

There was also this gigantic building which looks like a place Cornelius Vanderbilt might have once lived, but I think was actually city hall:

Regardless, I made my way back to the car and then to the first proper stop of the day, the zoo.

I was really excited to see the zoo.  Much as in Indianapolis, I just had an itch to see a zoo, and this one is supposed to not only be one of the best in the country, but it was also free!  Minus parking.

Here are some photos:

The rare penguin barbershop quartet.

Another good thing about the zoo is that it was in proximity to the art museum, which was the next destination on my list, after a quick zoo lunch.  It was just a short walk away, both of these places, and a few more, occupying part of a place called Forest Park.

Here is the front of the art museum:

And just inside:

A few arts:

And then some o that mess that I deSPISE:

Oh, wow!  He sewed buttons on a canvas randomly!  He subverts what we expect out of art.  Mostly our expectation that it will be good.

Okay, anyway.  The rest of it was fine, and the building itself was kinda neato:

I picked just the right time of day to do this, after a morning outdoors, spending the hottest part of the day in the cool inside was just right.

Next, I returned to Anheuser-Busch to try my luck again:

Stood in line, reached the counter, asked about the tour, and got handed an admit one ticket...for 4:30.  Whereas it was currently around 2:15.  So I would have to come back.

And now I had to decide what to do with this awkward amount of time that wouldn't allow me to see somewhere new in its entirety, but also was too long to just sit in the Biergarten on my phone getting good and sloshed before the tour with the free beer samples on it.  As a bit of a dice roll, I returned to Forest Park and headed for one of the buildings I'd decided earlier to cut from the day, the St. Louis Science Center.

This ended up being perfect.  Though the museum is generally geared toward children, they do also have an IMAX theater (Charlotte friends: think Discovery Place) showing those 45-minute educational spectacles every hour on the hour.  I arrived at the ticket kiosk at 2:58 and managed to buy a ticket for the 3:00 showing of Aircraft Carriers, which is not a huge area of interest of mine, but it was a fun film, and I LeArNeD a LoT!!!

I then dashed back to my car, hightailed it back to the brewery, and showed up with just a few minutes to spare before my 4:30 tour.

As someone who is also in the alcohol production facility tour business, I was excited to see how such a big player in the industry did their tours, and quite frankly it matched their brand: it felt much more mass-market.  It was a bit shorter, gave two tastings of Bud beer, and its main attraction was the Clydesdales :

It was fun, though, and I'm not just saying that because of the free beer.  Worth three trips to the facility to make it happen?  Well, maybe not...but yeah, fun.

And then, at last, it was time for the arch.  What I had initially hoped to get out of the way quickly first thing that morning was now the finale to my trip, and I'm kind of glad it ended up that way.  The most iconic sight to see in St. Louis would now serve as the main event.

Returned to the museum area with my ticket, which I had incredibly not misplaced during that whole day, and went down into it:

It was nearly 6:05, so I didn't explore the museum too much, and instead made my way straight to the line.  The way they organize this, I found out, is that they allow you to stand in line at your assigned ticket time, but you still have to wait in that line, and it is a long wait until you're actually in the capsule to ride up to the top...unless you're me, and they walk all the way back to the end of the line where you're standing and call out for individual riders.  Hoo baby, I get to skip a line!  This is a good day!

They handed me my placard:

Showed a brief presentation projected onto the concrete walls:

And lined us up at the pod bay doors:

Oops!

Tried to get a clear shot of the ride up, but the glass reflection blurried it all up:

Ah, well.  The real view came when we reached the top at last:

This is what the inside of the arch's crest looks like, by the by:

A little cramped, but not as much as you might expect.

Made my way down and out, and walked around the base of the arch a little more as the sun set:

There was just one last place I felt like seeing for the briefest of moments, which was luckily just a couple blocks' walk away:

Waaaaahooooooo!!!!

I sat down at a nickel slot, spent one dollar, won 25¢, and walked away.  That's all I wanted.  Well, if I had had more time, I would have joined a poker table, but with the schedule I'd wanted to keep, that was it.

Strolled back to my car just as it was getting dark, got in, and returned to the hotel.  I had allowed for time the next morning as a contingency if I had been unable to make one of my major destinations work, but my very full Saturday checked basically every box.  I checked out of the hotel at my leisure and made my way back home.