Vacation Report #12

At 630 ft. the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO is the tallest monument in the United States, commemorating the country's Westward Expansion. It was built over the course of three years, between 1963 and 1965, by men without safety harnesses of any kind, who held on with one hand and smoked their cigarettes with the other.

We arrived at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial just in time to get tickets later in the afternoon to go up to the observation deck of the monument since one side wasn't running that day. It takes approximately 4 minutes to get to the top via two trains of capsules that normally go up both legs of the monument, a sort of crossbreed of elevator/cable car/ferris wheel that rotates as it rises to compensate for the arched structure. And you can hear the screams of the passengers in the next car over.

We found how much two skinny little teenage girls really weigh!

After the scare of losing 3 teenage girls in an area swarming with the huddled masses we all ventured into a darkened theater, watched a 43-year-old documentary (that needs a major restoration), wandered the museum (including creepy animatronic old west dudes), visited the gift shops and ate fudge. Eventually our ticket time approached and we stood in a long line, waited some more and then finally boarded the capsule or as Melissa calls it "The Elevator of Death". It was a little claustrophobic. Our fellow travelers rode up elevator #3 while Melissa, Cassie & I stepped into #4 with two young ladies from Kentucky with matching white knuckles. Four agonizing minutes later and we were looking out the observation windows with 600 some odd feet of air beneath us!

For someone who suffers from acrophobia, the experience really wasn't all that bad. The small windows probably helped, despite being angled downward so that you can pretty much look straight down! But now we can say we've been there, we didn't fall off, it didn't fall over, and we didn't get stuck in the elevator on the way down either! I'm just glad we didn't read about this before we went. Melissa would never have gotten up if we had!

The "capsule"; Melissa at the top; the whole crew on the way down.

Next up: How 'bout a little history to go with your vacation?