God granted Sharla and I an extra hour and a half sleep this morning, by apparently keeping my alarm from going off. We were scheduled to call her sister, Lois, when we were up and ready to go (about 8), so we could plan breakfast. But all of a sudden I woke up to my watch saying 9! Before we could get ourselves ready, Lois called, and they agreed to meet us in the parking lot at about 9:30. We were packed and out of the door in record time, just to have them pull up as we approached the car. We packed the car up (also in a record 15 minutes!), and were off to “brunch” at the Cracker Barrel in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Cape Girardeau’s biggest claim to fame is that it is the hometown of Rush Limbaugh.
After a wonderful brunch (I had the apple strusel french toast!), we said good bye, and headed north to St. Louis. We didn’t have to look to hard to see the Gateway Arch, because it is HUGE. We actually saw it about 9 miles out. It stands 630 feet above the ground, which makes it the tallest thing in the city. After passing through the metal detectors, we got our tickets for the 2:55 p.m. “Tour to the Top.” We had about 25 minutes to wait, so we took a look around the lobby. It is an amazing place. In addition to the typical information centers, there is museum of westward expansion, a gift shop, a general store, and two theaters. We had limited time, so we decided to take a quick look at the museum.
I must say that this museum blew me away! It is extremely well done, with audioanimatronic figures that talk about life in the west, as well as numerous very well put together displays. We only were able to see a couple of things, and then we were off for our trip to the top!
First they divided us up into groups of 5 or less by handing us a big card with a number on it. We were “White 2.” Then we stood in line for about 10 minutes waiting our turn. When our time finally came, we were let through a turnstile, past a photographer who snapped a picture of the two of us for a souvenir (which we didn’t buy), and into another waiting area. This one, however, was a little more interesting: it had lots of old stuff to look at that had to do with the early days of St. Louis. After about 10 minutes there, we were called by number and taken down a flight of stairs, with 8 stations on it. We stood at station number 2. We were shown a short video about our trip to the top, and then the doors opened, and people coming down from the top got out of the tram cars to make room for us.
The tram cars are very small. They are about four feet in diameter, with five small stools in them. You have to stoop down to get in, and then stay stooped over while you sit in your seat. Even while you are sitting down you still have to stoop a bit. It’s no place for someone with bad claustrophobia! We shared the car with a family of three, and it was TIGHT! We were good friends by the time we reached the top! After we are all in, the doors close, and the tram takes off. It goes up the steeply sloped legs of the arch, going about 10 feet, with the car starting to lean to one side, and then the car kind of clicks over to level again until the next 10 feet are traversed. So we slope and click level all the way up to the top, which takes about 3 1/2 minutes.
At the top, the doors open, and we crawl out (other people are standing there waiting for us to get out so that they can get in to go down). And then we climb one more flight of stairs to the very top. The top of the arch is small (about 8 feet wide and tall, and about 30 feet long), with small (18 inches wide by 8 inches tall) windows on both sides. You can lean way over and look out and down, because the windows are on the slanted sides of the arch. I took quite a few pictures out the windows, and then made the mistake of leaning way over and looking down. You can see the bottom of the floor that you are standing on, and then see that there is absolutely nothing underneath you for 630 feet straight down! My acrophobia really kicked into high gear, and I had to step back from the windows and reason with myself for a minute or so. Then I was fine again.
After about 10 minutes or so, we both had our eyes full of the sights, so we wandered back down. We were given a car number and walked down the steps to our spot. Just as we got there, the tram arrived from down below, disgorging its riders, and opening up the very small space for us to get in. On the trip down we had the car to ourselves. The trip down is a little quicker than the trip up, so after only about 3 minutes of sloping and clicking, we were back on the ground safe and sound.
We then went back to the museum to look at the displays that we hadn’t had a chance to see earlier. After about an hour, we figured that we would have to hit the road.
Our trip to Lenexa, Kansas (a suburb of Kansas City, where our new World Headquarters building is located) was kind of intense! We drove through about an hour of some of the heaviest rain that I can recall driving through in quite a while. Thankfully it moved south and the last hour or so was much more pleasant. We are in our hotel for the night (trying to get our laundry done before bed). Tomorrow we will be attending Central Church of the Nazarene with Becky Nichols (Walt and Phillis’ daughter) and going to lunch with her. After that, we are going to try to make Oklahoma City for the night.
Good night and God bless.