Day 6: Easter and St. Louis Arch

April 20, 2014

Christ has risen! Happy Easter everyone.  We started today by attending Sunrise Services at Bethel United Methodist Church in Wildwood, MO, which is sort of a suburb of St. Louis.  It is about 30 miles from the water front area where the Arch is located in downtown St. Louis.  The service was outside – my preference – and the weather was great.  It was a nice service and the people were very friendly.  They invited us to breakfast after the service – blueberry pancakes, sausage, fruit and the list goes on.  Didn't need anything else to eat today.  But that never stopped us before.  After services we went to St Louis.  We had asked for suggestions on places to go and Max's brother sent us an email:  “Our favorite things about St Louis were the DONUT-DRIVE-IN, the St Louis zoo, the DONUT-DRIVE-IN, the arch, the DONUT-DRIVE-IN, a walk across the old RT 66 bridge and DONUT-DRIVE-IN.”  Well guess where we stopped on the way into St Louis. 

Mmmmm, they were good. Hey – everyone needs dessert after a nice big breakfast!   

We then went to the Arch.  

Lots of people at the park on this beautiful Easter afternoon.  The National Park Service runs the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial – the official name of the arch and park.  Well, that means we finally got our "geeser pass".  For those of you who don't know – anyone over the age of 62 can pay a one time fee of $10.00 and purchase a “Senior Pass” which gets you into all the National Parks (and up to 3 additional people traveling with you) for FREE for LIFE.  Yes, we like free, so now we are the proud owners of “geeser” (Senior) pass. We hope to put that to good use the next few months. 

By the way, security to go to the top of the arch is like going through airport security.  We had been encouraged to walk up to the top and that was our plan.  But now, the only people allowed to use the steps are maintenance people.  Now you ride the tram to the top.  4 minutes up and 3 back down.  The tram is actually 8 very small, individual pods with 5 people in each pod. 

Talk about claustrophobic!  The arch is 63 stories high.  It might have taken us a little more than 3 minutes to walk up but we could have done it.  It was crowded at the top too.  There are small windows to look out and of course we took a lot of pictures. 

 Little windows

 Looking Down

Across the River

Old Courthouse

It was a very nice afternoon in the park.

After the arch we checked in to the Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park.  This is another nice park.  Large, with hiking and biking trails which we will hopefully explore tomorrow.  After we parked at our site (#18) we confirmed what we suspected.  We had a leak in our fresh water fill tube – the built-in tube that allows us to put water in our fresh water tank.  Fortunately the water was draining to the outside and not causing a problem in the coach.  We spent the next 1.5 hours repairing that, but repair it we did.  That was a relief.  We were very thankful it was the fill tube and not the actual tank as that could have really put a dent in our travel plans.  That's about it for today.  Not sure what we are doing tomorrow so...will let you know when we figure it out.  Stay safe everyone.