Summer of 18-#8-Malcolm W Martin Memorial Park & Gateway Arch, St. Louis

May 17th, 2018 (Part 1) - Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri

We decided to go into St. Louis, Missouri to see the Gateway Arch.  This is the largest arch in the world.  We looked at the different options for seeing this.

1. Did we want to go up it, a tram takes you up to the top.  Each tram carries 5 people and you are tightly packed in.  It can be claustrophobic.  One of those things that you do just to say you've done it.
2.  We could take a riverboat cruise, either on its own or with a joint ticket and go up the arch in the tram as well.  From the cruise we could get a picture of the arch that had the whole arch in it.
3.  A trolley ride around St. Louis that shows you all the sites including the Arch.
4.  Lastly, I searched for "Best places to take a picture of the St. Louis Arch?"  The best answer I found was Malcolm W Martin Memorial Park (Read about Malcolm Martin, who had an interesting life ).  This was located directly opposite the Arch on the other side of the Mississippi River in Illinois.  The State line runs down the center of the river.  The website told you the best way to get there and some reviews said you had to go through a bad part of town but there was always a security guard there and no one had ever had any problems.

I do try and do extensive research when we are going to places that we don't know.  Yes, I go a little overboard and often it takes a lot of time.

We quickly decided we didn't want to go up the Arch.  We wouldn't be able to get a picture of it if we were in it!!!

Should we do the cruise which went by it and said you could get a picture or go to the park opposite which seems to be the best place to get a picture and we could combine with a trolley tour.

We ultimately decided we would just go to the park. It was free and there were a couple of other places we wanted to go, so we would skip the trolley bus.

After a terrible start it turned out to be the best decision!!!

There were roadworks and closed roads around the park and it took a long while to figure out how to get to the park.  We could see it but every road we took ended up being closed.  We were very frustrated and took it out on each other.  We got very close to just saying let's forget about it, but then we saw a couple of cars on the road we needed to be on and knew there had to be a way to get on that road.  We stopped to get gas and I asked inside but they had no idea what I was talking about.  This was about 5 minutes away from where we needed to get to, but it was the bad part of town.  We were going to ask at the police department opposite but couldn't figure out how to get into the building.  Anyway, eventually we worked it out and we got there. Phew!!!

 It was worth it and we soon forgot our frustrations.

On top of all that we knew that the Gateway Geyser, the worlds tallest fountain, was only scheduled to be on at midday for 15 minutes.  After not being able to find our way we thought we would miss it but managed to get there just after 12.

The Geyser erupting, we could feel the spray even this far away

After the geyser stopped

Close up of the geyser fountain

Our first view of the Arch from the park.  We went on the elevated walkway and platform on the left to get a better view

Bryan took a selfie of us in front of the arch across the river.

There were instructions telling you about the live webcam and how to call your friends and tell them to watch you.  We called Bryan's mom and gave her the link to get on and see if she could see us.

This was a statue of Malcolm Martin, the man whose vision made this all possible.  The livecam camera is on top of the post behind us.  When mom logged in, all she could see was our backs and when we called her to see if she had seen us, she asked who I had my arm around.  If you look at the webcam online you can see the statue looks very realistic.

Later that night I went on the website and this was the picture they had of us from the webcam.  You can't see me because I'm behind the sitting statue.  

The geyser at the back of the park taken from the elevated walkway.

The Arch with government house and the court buildings in the center.

The Gateway Arch riverboat, it looked a bit the worse for wear and we were glad we had decided not to go on it.

Government House & Court Buildings under the Arch

Eads Bridge is one of the oldest large scale bridges in the country and the first one over the Mississippi.  Regular traffic goes across the top and there is a track for trams underneath.  If you look closely you can see a tram going over, to the left of the pole in the middle of the picture.

Eads Bridge with a modern bridge behind it.  The old and the new!!!

Going through St. Louis, Missouri

A lady asked us if we would like her to take a picture of us and we gladly accepted.  She was walking her old black labrador, who reminded us of CoCo, so we talked about him for a while.  He is suffering from cancer and so just living out his life as best he can.

Someone had staged the white car there and was taking pictures.  Bryan said it was an expensive car but I don't remember the name of it. He just told me it was a Tesla. The doors opened up like wings though, ha!!ha!!  Sorry, a car is just a car to me.  Gets you from A to B if you take care of it.

Sue in front of the Arch

Just another picture, showing the river in front

Bryan in front of the Arch with Tilly, our old faithful car!!!

Well, that turned out to be a lovely stop after the initial problems.  Part two will follow with a visit to the Ulysses S Grant Historical Site and a visit to Scott AFB on the way back to Lily.  Stay tuned!!!