St. Louis

This year, NCYM (National Conference for Youth Ministers) was in St. Louis, Missouri. We had most of the day Monday open before the conference started that evening, so we decided to go see the famous Arch.

It was VERY cold that day. The temperatures were in the 30's. If you have never been to the Arch before, there is a very long walk from the parking lot to the Arch. It might not have actually been that long, but with the temperature being as cold as it was and an arctic breeze blowing, it sure seemed like a looooonnnng walk. We walked as fast as our legs would carry us! And for those of you wondering, no, I was not wearing by beloved flip flops. I was wearing shoes and socks, like I had been wearing for the past two weeks, due to the cold temperatures that Texas was having. If you think I am making up how cold it was, look at the Mississippi River. It runs beside the Arch and had pieces of ice floating down it and along the edges!

This is the best picture I could get of the outside of the Arch. It is 630 feet tall. Because of the trees and landscape around it, I couldn't get the top and bottom of the Arch in the picture. I might have had a little more patience if it weren't so dang cold!

There were a couple of these signs inside the Arch at the top.

My handsome husband, me, and my adorable baby boy inside the top of the Arch.

Here are some views out some of the windows from the top of the Arch. Pretty cool!

I think this is the Budweiser Stadium. I should've written it down, because I don't remember exactly. I remember it being labeled as some beer stadium.I also don't remember the name of this Cathedral, but I do remember that it is a really old Cathedral.
Jeremy and Rilian inside the arch of the Arch. You can see the other tourists looking out the windows. Yes...we were tourists.

This is the narrow stairwell we walked up, when our little space-age looking elevator car stopped. We didn't have to walk very far up the steps, but the steps do go all the way down to the bottom. The lady standing there rode up with us. She works there and said she will spend that day at the top of the Arch. I am not sure what she is doing, possibly working a crossword puzzle. Just kidding. However, she let us know when the next elevator ride down would be. I think they were spaced about every 15 minutes or so. The windows in the Arch were small and rectangular. But you could see plenty, looking out.

Rilian loved looking out the windows! He just layed there and watched the world go by.

We decided we had seen enough of the world from the top of the Arch.This is what the space-age looking elevators looked like. They were kind of like a pod. There were 5 or 6 seats in each. It was very small inside. If you have a problem with claustrophobia, I would not recommend getting in one. The ride up and down took about 10 minutes. And you constantly heard creeking and popping noises, with an occasional boom sound, as you rode to the top or bottom of the Arch. It also rocked back and forth. Sounds fun, huh? It made me think of a roller coaster.

When you first walk into the Arch, there is a museum and a couple of souvenier stores. When we came back down from the top of the Arch, we walked through the museum. It was pretty neat. It contained alot of history. This was a boat in the museum. I thought it was really cool, so I took a picture of it. It is made out of buffalo or bison fur/skin. I thought it was interesting how they kept the tail on it. The tail just kind of hung over into the inside of the boat. I am not sure why they did this, or what their reasoning was. However, since I have a baby, I wondered if it was there for something for the baby to play with.