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| Gateway Arch in St Louis |
Just before I went to sleep last night, I changed into my swimming suit, packed up all my dirty clothes, and started a load of laundry. Then I took a shower and lay down to wait for the wash to finish so I could put it in the dryer. About the time the wash should have been done, Kyle texted me and said he would move the clothes and that I should go to sleep. Bless him.
I woke up about 5:00 but chose to slowly wake up rather than hop right out of bed and get going. I knew the grandkids had to get up at around 6:30 so they could be ready to head off for school at 7:00. Sometimes I'll get up and just disappear from someone's house but not the grand kids.
I went down to get my laundry and spent time getting it all packed. I'm using rolling vacuum bags. That means I open the bags, fold the clothes and put them in as flat as I can. Then I seal the bags and starting from the zip lock side I start rolling and it forces the air out the bottom end of the bags. The more pressure I can put and the tighter I can get it, the more compressed it all becomes. These bags aren't perfect but they only need to keep a seal for a day or two at most.
Then I load the bags into a cheap duffel I bought at Wal-Mart the bags are just a little bit shorter than the duffel, which allows me to put my bathroom bag and a few other things in the top. Then the whole thing slides really nicely into the front trunk on my motorcycle (frunk). It fits perfectly. The length, width, everything is just right to fit in there, leaving me a nice gap on either side to stick my CPAP and a few other things on the other side. I really like the arrangement.
Once I had everything ready and was fully dressed, I lay down again and listened to a book while I waited for the grandkids to get up. I heard moving downstairs so I went in to wake up Pendaryn and Tyr. Like most kids they didn't just jump right out of bed but they didn't fight very hard either.
I went back to my room and folded my sheets and blankets up. Then grabbed my stuff and took it downstairs to sit by the front door. By the time Laura and the boys were ready to leave, I was also ready to leave. I gave everybody big hugs and told them how much I'd enjoyed being there. I especially told Pen how much I loved going on that ride with him to Hannibal.
Willow was still asleep and I didn't want to wake her up so they headed off to school and I went to load up my bike. I was almost done loading when Kyle came out the door and said that Willow was awake. So I went back in to hug her and also took a picture with her. She sure is a sweet little girl. I said goodbye again and gave Kyle, a big hug and told him how proud I was of him and how much love he had for his family.
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| Giving WillowWind a goodbye hug |
I finished loading the bike and headed off to the McDonald's to grab a quick breakfast sandwich and the diet Dr. Pepper.
My plan from day one was for this day to be spent in Kansas City. I was going to go to the World War One museum and the Harry Truman Presidential Library. I've been to both but I wanted to take a little more time and walk through slowly. However when I made those plans I assumed that temperatures would be dropping by now. Instead they have gone up over the last week or two. I'm really struggling riding in the late afternoons with over 100° temperatures.
So with all that in mind I've decided to travel in the mornings when it's cool and do my touring in the afternoons when it's hot. I'm not far from Kansas City so that would put me touring at about 9:00 and would leave me with hours of riding in the heat of the day. Instead I decided I will skip Kansas City. Kyle lives here and I'm certainly going to be back and can do those tours whenever I want. Instead I will head straight to St. Louis and get a bucket list item checked off. I have been through Kansas City probably nine times in my life but I have never managed to go up the arch.
The last few times I drove through I've actually tried to figure out how to see the arch, but they don't make it easy. None of the freeway exits mention the arch and if you get off the freeway signs don't really point you to the arch. So this time I spent some time watching videos and reading articles. I figured out where I needed to park and how you walk from the parking over to the arch, and the fact that you need to get a reservation.
The only thing that really took me by surprise was that the route from Chillicothe to St. Louis took me right back to Hannibal, Missouri, where I was yesterday. So I will have driven Highway 36 three times in three days. I'm not too upset because Highway 36 is a really nice road with very little traffic.
The GPS had me leave Highway 36 down some little County Road A. I kept expecting to find a gas station right by the turn off but there was nothing. I hadn't stopped for gas yet and I was down under a quarter. I stopped and looked on the GPS to find a gas station and found one just about two minutes off my route so I dialed that in. The GPS redirected me onto even smaller roads. And again I really don't mind because they were gorgeous. The roads wound around through thick wooded areas and then a few open fields and beautiful homes. It was a very nice ride.
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| Beautiful roads on the way to get gas |
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| More tree lined roads |
Temperatures so far have been in the high 70s and felt great. It was coming up on 9:00 and the sun was climbing in the sky. Now the GPS put me on to another four-lane highway heading south towards St. Louis, paralleling the Mississippi River. Traffic started to increase as I got closer to St. Louis. By the time I was fifty miles out, we were almost bumper to bumper in high-speed traffic, which is no fun on a motorcycle.
The temperature also rose up into the mid-90s. When I was ten miles from the arch, I decided to stop, double-check my directions, and get something to drink. This is definitely not the best part of town! I gassed up then went in to use the bathroom but the lady wanted to see my gas receipt before she gave me the key. I hadn't bothered to get a receipt so she wouldn't let me use the bathroom.
I drink my soda in the shade of the building. Two guys happened to wander over to look at the bike. They really liked it and commented about the Bronco sticker. I told them I had just come from Kansas. They said that they kind of root for the Chiefs but not really. They asked a bunch of questions about how the trike works and one guy said his grandpa had just sold his Honda Rune and was looking for something to replace it.
They eventually wandered off and I got back on the bike and headed into downtown St. Louis. The GPS led me directly to Arch parking, which turned out to be closed. Luckily across the street was another parking lot. I pulled in and parked the bike. There were signs everywhere saying to hide valuables and that they weren't responsible for stolen property. I made sure to tuck away anything of value and lock the trunk and the handlebars. Then I headed over for the Arch.
It was only a couple of blocks before I was into the Arch trail system. You have to come around from the westward side to enter and everything kind of pushes you that way anyway. I took out my 360 camera and started taking a few pictures. Then headed for the entrance. I decided not to get reservations because when I checked this morning they had available openings every single slot of the day.
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| Front Entrance to the Arch Visitor Center |
I have an America the Beautiful National Park pass and I think it lowered my entry fee from $29 to $14. They put me on the 12:55 group. I had to walk down some stairs and through a museum to get in line. I figured I'd come back and look through the museum once I was done with the tour.
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| Entrance to the Tram ride |
The lady looked at my ticket and then handed me a boarding pass with a big number 2 on it. We stood around for a few minutes as the rest of the group gathered and then our guide led us forward and started giving us the safety briefing and telling us some of the history of the arch. It took about 10 or 15 minutes as we slowly moved from place to place before she finally told us to separate into our various groups by number.
I was with two men who turned out to be a father and son from Puerto Rico. I don't think the father spoke English but the son did. We finally got to a set of stairs and she had us go down and stand on the stairs with our number. We stood there for a few minutes and then a loud clatter started to approach. It was the elevators returning with a group from the top. We couldn't see much but we could hear it as it slowed and eventually locked into place. Then the doors opened. The doorway was about 4 ft high by about 2.5 ft wide. The occupants had to side step their way out and then climbed up the stairs to leave.
Once they were all gone we had to climb in ourselves. It wasn't super tight but it wasn't made for big people. There were seats for five so the three of us fit fairly comfortably. They were trying to take selfies so I offered to take a picture for them. I just used my 360 and stuck it back out the door to get a picture of us inside the chamber. Once we were all loaded, the door slid closed and we began the climb. The guide had warned us that we would fail a mechanical rocking as it climbed and the tilt of the arch changed. It was a pretty slow climb. Certainly faster than I could climb stairs but we didn't zoom to the top. Through the window in the door, we could watch the stairs that climbed alongside us and some of the framework on the inside of the arch.
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| Waiting to get in the elevator |
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| One elevator car - they ask several times if you are claustrophobic |
It took about 5 minutes to go up, but eventually we slowed and stopped but we certainly hadn't leveled out. The doors opened and we were once again on stairs. Since we were number two we were almost at the top of the stairs. I just had a short way to get up to the famous arch viewing room. There was only one elevator running today so the room was empty as we entered. We had been warned that we only had ten minutes to do all of our sightseeing. Since I had my 360 camera, it was pretty easy for me to get most of the selfie pictures I wanted to get. Then I used my phone to take several pictures out the windows and other first-person sort of shots.
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| Windows looking out the sides |
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| The room really is this curved |
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| View out a west window |
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| Full view out the west |
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| Full view out the East |
I took pictures for a lot of people who wanted to get their whole groups into shots. But it was so bright outside that the windows all just looked like white blobs.
I spent a few times in each direction just admiring the views and the distance. It was a pretty clear day but there was just a slight humidity haze off in the distance. I don't think they have any wildfires so it had to just be humidity.
It seemed like no time at all when they were telling us to get back to the elevators to go down. They called us by our numbers, with number 8 descending the stairs first and the farthest distance down. We had to wait while the new tourists came up and got out of their cars. Then we loaded up and got ready to descend. I talked a little more with the other guys and we talked about the fact that I was on a motorcycle ride across the U.S. and that part of my ride was visiting national parks. They started telling me about the national parks that I really needed to get over and see in Puerto Rico. That sounded like a fun thing to try to do.
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| Standing on our yellow steps waiting for the arrivals to exit |
The descent was much faster than the ride up. It was only 2 or 3 minutes to go down. It wasn't scary, but it was very noticeable how much faster things flew by the window on the way down.
When we got off at the bottom, I wandered back into the museum area. I had been in such a hurry to get to the Arch that I had yet to eat lunch and it was almost 1:30. They had a cafe down here so I decided to see what was available. They had your standard burgers and a few sandwiches, pizza, nuggets, and a few other things. They also had St. Louis-style ribs for $18. I knew they couldn't be that good but I went ahead and got myself a plate of ribs.
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| St Louis style Ribs at the Arch Cafe |
They were clearly boiled ribs with a light rub on them. When I asked about BBQ Sauce, they directed me to The Condiments, where I found Hine's BBQ Sauce. I don't even think I knew Hine's made a barbecue sauce. It was all sugar and fake smoke. But I was hungry and they went down pretty quick.
I also spent the time pulling the photos off of my 360 camera and selecting shots. I don't actually like you to do this because it doesn't preserve the time the photo was taken in the metadata. So the photos don't sort cleanly. If I use my laptop to process the 360 photos, it works right. I should probably have just found the one or two photos I wanted to send as text messages and left the rest to do later. I'll try to remember to do it that way in the future.
While I was working with my 360 camera, I noticed that one of the lens covers had come off and was missing. I use a rubber cover to protect the camera when it's not in use, so the underlying lens wasn't damaged, but I felt very nervous without that cover. I texted my buddy Mike and asked if he could help me figure out how and where to get one shipped so I could pick it up in a day or two.
We talked through many idea and finally settled on having it shipped to Baton Rouge where I'd meet up with John and Ron on Thursday. It can be delivered to an Amazon locker near our hotel by Wednesday. Then I can pick it up at my leisure.
After I finished lunch I wandered through the museum. I wasn't quite sure what the theme of the museum was but it wasn't the arch. It was about Taming the West, a little about the Louisiana Purchase, and a little about the history of St. Louis. And they really had a thing for Andrew Jackson.
At one point I heard a family arguing about which fictional Character had jumped from the top of the St. Louis arch. Half the family thought it was Harry Potter, others thought it was Katniss or Edward. I felt like an uber-geek when I butted in and said "It was Percy Jackson" and they all remembered and agreed.
I left the museum and walked to the river side of the arch to get pictures from that side. I don't know if it looks any different, but the sun is at a different angle.
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| The arch from the East. Too close to get the iconic shot |
I walked back to the parking garage and found my bike just as I'd left it.
I knew it would be super hot outside, so I pulled out my evaporative vest. I used my portable jug and a trash bag to wet down the vest, but the water was very warm. When I put the vest on it didn't feel refreshing at all, but I hoped it would get better as I started riding. But once I was on the freeway doing 50, all I felt was wet and hot. If there was evaporative cooling going on, I couldn't tell.
I only rode for about 10 minutes then took an exit to a gas station. I went in and bought a large bottle of cold water. I wrung the vest out as much as I could, then poured the cold water over it. The trash bag helps hold the water against the vest until it soaks in. NOW when I put the vest on it felt great.
I quickly got back on the bike and headed off. The bike said it was 108 degrees and I believe it. But the cold water really helped and I could feel the evaporative effect this time. The cooling effect lasted about 45 minutes so I pulled off and did it again. Another bottle of cold water and back on the road.
By now it was after 5:00. The freeway was lined with tall trees about 30 foot high and the sun was low enough that I began riding through shadows much of the time. The shade really helped cut the oppressive heat. The temperature also began falling. First down to 102, then 99, and finally all the way to 91 which felt much better.
I finally arrived at my cheapo hotel in Jackson Missouri by 6:30. The hotel is a "Quality Inn" and only cost $70. The hallways smell strongly of smoke and marijuana, but the room smells fine and it's clean. I plan to be on the road by 5:00 so I can make it to Shilo Battlefield.
Dinner was a cobb salad from Wendy's. It hit the spot. I've had lots of heavy meals over the last few days and getting something healthy and light in my stomach as nice.
Daily Miles: 362
Total Miles: 1344
