St. Louis: Gateway to the West

The Arch

Back in the day St. Louis used to be known as the gateway to the West.  At least it was to the pioneers and Thomas Jefferson (from whom we received the Louisiana Territory and the westward land that came with it.)

It's also 630 feet (7,560) inches tall.  For the visualists out there, the space needle could fit underneath it.

Made of steel and concrete the arch weighs 17,246 tons.

I think all of these facts are well and good, but let's be real here.  The main attraction to the arch is that it's just so cool!  It's one of those attractions that allows you to pretend that you're somehow on the Planet of Naboo, or some other space planet.  By the way, I've totally been to the Planet of Naboo. (¡gracias senior Spanish trip!)

We never got tired of seeing the arch towering above the St. Louis skyline.  It must be how out-of-towners feel when they visit Seattle for the first time and stare up at the space needle.

We stayed with Andrew in his apartment all except for the last two nights when we stayed downtown.  Our room had a crazy view of the arch, we definitely lucked out on that one.

This picture cracks me up! After Conor snapped that jump photo of me I tried to return the photo and snap a "woohoo I'm under the arch" photo of him.  I think you can see how well that turned out.

Btw, this was an arch that Conor and I built at the St. Louis Science Center.  There was lots of head-balancing-the-blocks-whilst-one-leg-balances-body-whilst-one-arm-reaches-for-other-block-whilst-other-arm-holds-the-stacked-blocks. 

All in all our verdict is: the arch rocks and you should probably go take as many pictures under/near it as you can.  

St. Louis: The Eats

and 

St. Louis: The Adventures

coming soon!

Look Who's Talking

A Day With the Dais

Conor and I recently returned from our trip to St. Louis.  We had an incredible time!  Andrew was an awesome host and he showed us all of St. Louis' greatest places to see and eat.  Seriously, we had soooo much good food!  Eating at new places is one of my most favorite things to do.  

I'll be posting pics from our trip later, but for now I wanted to share some pictures of our sweet niece, Daisy.  I was lucky and got to have her all day yesterday!  :)  My school is still on spring break so I just got to soak up the day with that little bean.