Thursday morning began with a trip to the "Gateway Arch" and the "Museum of Westward Expansion". I was very excited about seeing the arch, getting the view from the top of the arch, however I had heard horror stories about the elevator rides to the top. That was making me nervous plus the fact that I have a slight aversion to heights.
Below is a picture of the pod (or egg-like thing) that you ride to the top of the arch in. It is very small and cramped and a larger person definitely would not fit in.
This is inside the arch at the top. It is 630feet high and it's pretty cool to look out the windows and see where everything is. You may be able to notice from the pictures that the floor is really sloped.
A view of the Old Courthouse and looking out over most of downtown St. Louis. This is my favorite picture that I took from the top since you can see the shadow from the arch.
On our way out of the arch, you've heard the saying "Boys will be boys" and "mine is bigger than yours", well let's just say that both of these phrases describe the next two pictures. Mark and Markus (one of our teens) where having a contest to see who could jump and reach the highest up on the arch. Actually, they were pretending to do "Assassin's Creed" moves. Now, these pictures don't truly show who won because Mark was coming back down to Earth in his photo and Markus was just going up in his.
Then we walked over to that Old Courthouse that you saw from the top of the arch and we got to take a tour of the inside. It's now a museum with some offices still left in it.
Of course no trip to a monument or famous place is complete without a group photo! :)
Inisde the courthouse we learned all about The Fibanocci Sequence and how everything that we think is beautiful is beautiful because it meets "The Golden Ratio". If I am speaking Greek to you, just Google "The Fibanocci Sequence" and read up on it. But be prepared this is High School level Math!
Looking up into the dome! It was really pretty.
Then we had lunch on the Gateway Arch Riverboat.
Then it was off to historical Union Station, which by the way was/is larger than Grand Central Station in NYC that we visited in May. Here is the front. It was built as a replica to a castle that you can find in France.
And here is the clock tower, which could be seen from all around St Louis and all down the 34 train tracks and that's what the people of St. Louis used for the official time.
The back side of Union Station covers (literally, it's a covered place) 30 something acres. And most of it has been turned into a mall like area with fine dining and shops galore. We got the privilidge of singing there. Yes, it was too hot for an outside concert though.
Because of the heat we didn't get much of an audience but it was still a great experience for the teens and one man even came by scoffing us and our God, and it was neat to see how they reacted and went on about their concert.
Then we got to tour the Old Train Station. Yes, I know what you are thinking, "Wow, they've taken lots of tours this year!" Mark and I were joking that this was the Mission Tour of tours. It's just funny how different things work out every year and we got free tours so many places, why wouldn't you take a professional guided tour. Below is the original sign in the Grand Hall.
This is Courtney. No she is not standing in time out. She's actually standing inside the arch that goes over the entryway. This is know as the Whispering Arch. Someone can stand on either side of the arch and whisper and their voice is carried up and over to the other side where the other person can very cleary hear what that person just said. It was so cool! I want one in my house!
The ceiling inside the Grand Hall. They just don't make architecture beautiful anymore!
Now this arch was above the Women's side of the hall and it's actually a relief sculpture intended to catch all of the dust and soot from the trains. The more dust and soot the angels collect the more their details stand out. Isn't that amazing?!
The famous stain glass window.
Then we went to dinner at the best place in all of St. Louis, Hodak's. If you are ever in St. Louis you MUST eat here. Not only are they extremely and reasonably priced, their food is so good that there were long lines of people trying to get in to eat there by the time we left. So if you're going to go, go early! I had the Frog Legs and they were quite sticky but delicious.
Then we went to Sunrise Assisted Living Center and did a concert for the elderly there.
This is where they set us up for the concert and I thought it worked very well. The thing I loved about this assisted living center was that everywhere you looked or went, it looked like a very large house, not a hotel, not a nursing home, but a home, a place where someone actually lived. It had such a family like feel to it. And I realized how important that must be to those people.
After the concert we always take time to talk to the people that we sang for.
This day was also very special for me because my sister had her baby right before we did this concert and I was so happy and couldn't wait to receive a picture of my new nephew. But that's a whole other post for another day.
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