22nd June - St Louis

We had a very early start today as our train left at 7.30am from Kansas City for St Louis. So we were up before 6am and arranged a cab for 6.45am. The train journey lasted just over 6 hours and the scenery has become far less spectacular than on previous journeys - just ordinary stuff - fields, houses, trees etc. We arrived in St Louis to a temperature of nearly 100 degrees and high humidity. We nearly expired!

After settling into our (this time) not very nice hotel we thought we really ought to venture out into the sauna outside and see a bit of the city. We are situated near the Mississippi

View from hotel 3rd floor (zoomed in a bit)

so walked down to the riverfront and along to the ‘touristy area’. We had our first view of The Gateway Arch - it is awe-inspiring - 620 feet high and towers over everything else in the city.

We first of all boarded a replica Mississippi paddle boat for a river trip. Not a very inspiring trip and the commentator had a bit of a hard time finding points of interest to speak about - although he did find a few. The best part of the trip was getting out onto the water and feeling the breeze as it really was HOT, and it was a good feeling - sailing down the Mississippi!

After that we went to the visitor centre beneath the huge Gateway Arch to purchase tickets for a ride to the top. Our ticket included a 45 minute film about Clark and Lewis - the two men who led the first overland expedition to the Pacific Coast. They set out from St Louis in 1804 and they were away for around 2 years, there and back. It was an amazing story and the film was quite riveting. It was a huge screen - an Imax I suppose (although I am not really sure what an Imax is). Terry and I agree that this trip has not been all ‘pleasure’ - we have learned quite a lot of American history along the way - but will we remember it?!

When the film ended we went into a little 5-seater ‘pod’ - one of 8 sort of linked together and ascended to the top of the arch. It took over 4 minutes to get there and was a bit claustrophobic, but better than climbing 1076 steps! Apparently on a clear day you can see 7 states from the top, I don’t know how far we saw but I was certainly a long way.

We had dinner in one of the many restaurants in Laclede’s Landing - an historic area of town named after a French fur trapper named Pierre Laclede who set out from New Orleans to explore the Illinois Country to establish a trading post. In 1764, he chose the west bank of the Mississippi River. In 1784, the site was cleared and temporary cabins were built. Laclede named the settlement St. Louis in honour of the patron saint of the king of France. This site is now an area covering several blocks with many restaurants, gift shops and pubs all housed in lovely old red brick buildings with cobbled streets.


We were thankful to return to our hotel room as we saw that, even at around 8.30pm, the temperature was still in the high 80’s.