While I typically try to visit and discuss places that may not be as well known, the St. Louis Arch is such a wonderful experience that I feel I would be robbing any readers by not promoting it. Despite being such a historical site and having so much to offer in terms of the experience of going up there, the river (though I was extremely disappointed by the river, I thought it would be wider), the gift shop, and the museum, it was only a $35 ticket, though a bit of research seems to show that tickets have gotten cheaper since I was there. While $35 is more than I would typically pay for an experience, I thought that was cheap for what the experience offered. And I couldn’t pass up on the chance to see where Percy Jackson almost died.
Upon going up there, I discovered that Rick Riordan very clearly didn’t research the Arch too much when writing The Lightning Thief. Percy would never have fit through one of those windows, and if he did, he would have gone splat on the pavement, not sploosh into the river. Still an amazing book that I highly recommend.
Fictional inaccuracies aside, it was amazing to go up there and see the city below me. Words cannot express how magical it feels to be able to overlook so much at once, and I do suggest that everyone should add it to their list of places to visit. However, I cannot stress enough that if you have a fear of heights or enclosed spaces, this is NOT the experience for you. The trip up there is definitely going to trigger some claustrophobia if that’s something that you struggle with, and looking out the windows to see how far up you are may cause some anxiety.
The museum was one of my favorite parts of it, it was so interesting to learn about the history of St. Louis, including the fire, and tragic learning about how the indigenous people of the area were treated, along with how the buffalo were hunted down to near extinction. I was able to feel a buffalo’s fur that an employee was wheeling around on a cart, and it was softer than I had expected it to be.
The gift shop offered a lot as well. I got a couple magnets, a keychain, a jacket patch (I’ll iron them all onto a jacket someday, I swear), and a map of the Lewis and Clark expedition along with a paper of all the presidents, with pictures, term years, and signatures, both replicated on parchment made to feel antiquated.
One word of advice is to avoid parking by the river if possible. My GPS took me to a parking lot right next to the river, and the slope was quite steep. I really had to gun it, full pedal to the metal, when I left to avoid sliding backwards into the Mississippi River, and doing so overexerted my car and broke the transmission. I ended up getting somewhat stranded in Illinois, and that parking mistake ended up cutting my road trip a state short.
Similarly to the last post about Horseshoe Falls, I don’t have any pictures from my time at the Arch, but you can bet that if I should ever find myself back there, I will be a) not parking by the river, but b) taking plenty of pictures for a next article, so stay tuned!