Wednesday August 7

We knew we had to go see the Arch while we were so close to St Louis. It's a must see so we headed straight there after breakfast.

 It's so big you can't fit it all in one frame of a picture. It's pretty darn impressive. The line to get in was long because they were doing a thorough security check. We were okay with that. There was also a wait to get up there so that was lots of time to get nice and nervous about the whole idea of going up there.

 As you can see the elevator pods were pretty tiny. It's a miracle we all fit inside together really. They ratchet up and over and you can hear it so that's a little creepy. It is a four minute ride up and a three and a half minute down. Sounds quick but it is NOT especially when you are all jammed in there freaking out. Some more than others! There were stairs up the final bit and suddenly there you are up on top of the world.

Heading up!

The view is amazing of course!

 When you are up there you can feel the sway of the arch. It gives up to 9 inches in each direction so that's 18 inches total. Kinda makes you sick thinking about it but feeling that is worse. Hayden said he got motion sick. I think a few of us were just pretty worked about the whole thing and secretly glad when we got to the bottom. Others not so secretly!

We have perfected the selfie!

 

 

 

So heading down was a bit quicker but just as exciting!

After we did the arch it was time to hit the road and start going west.

 We were bummed we didn't get to a Cardinal's game but since we have done that we opted for the Ram's camp instead this time. SO next time we will go to a game!

St Louis Temple

 

 The weather started to turn ugly that afternoon. We were hoping to make good time to Kansas City and do some things but ...

No matter what the weather is like a person's gotta eat!

 We asked around and found out about Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City so we were all over that. We tried to hook up with Ciara (Leatham) for dinner since they live close but that didn't work out. So the storm was crazy. Thunder and Lightning everywhere. Like right on top of us when we were checking into our hotel close! SO after dinner we took the surface streets because it was raining so hard you could hardly see at times and decided to checkout the city. What we saw of it was beautiful. Of course we tried our best to avoid the ghetto so who knows but it was a nice city. Would have like to spend more time there.

Don't you love it!