Visiting The Gateway Arch: St. Louis

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Visiting the Gateway Arch was the must-see experience on my to do list during my trip to St. Louis earlier this month. The last time that I had been to the arch was during a family vacation over ten years ago. So essentially, this felt like a brand new experience.

The Gateway Arch is a part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, but most people just think of the site as the St. Louis Arch. After passing through security we purchased our tickets and prepared to board our capsule to the top of the arch. It is often difficult to obtain tickets for the arch. However, we went around 7 P.M. in the middle of the week and boarded the next available tram. Timing is everything.

Each passenger is given a boarding card which designates which capsule you will board. There are 8 capsules that fit 5 people each. Only three of us rode in the capsule and it was a tight fit. I couldn’t see 5 people fitting comfortably.

The trip to the top is brief, about 4 minutes. Due to the nature of the arch’s design, the capsule rotates 155°. But don’t worry, you stay level the whole time. When you think about it, the engineering that went into creating the arch is impressive.

Arriving at the top, one can look out the small viewing windows and see the city of St. Louis below. The top of the arch is a very tight space. It’s not for the faint-hearted. The only thing keeping you in place is physics, no support columns here!

After about 10 minutes of exploring I descended down the South Side of the Arch to take some photos of the arch before it became too dark.

At the base of the arch, which is underground, there are several exhibits that tell the history of our country’s expansion west. If I had more time I would have spent time in the museum. Just as the sun was setting I was able to capture one of our country’s most famous landmarks in it’s best moment – with the soft, gentle rays of the sun shining off of the brightly polished metal of the Gateway Arch. If you’d like to see more photos I took at the Gateway Arch, visit my Flickr site.

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