Gateway Arch National Park

... and BBQ, Budweiser, and Botanicals

Today was a scheduled rest day — no driving — and we visited the Gateway Arch National Park, which is AWESOME for engineering geeks! And its tells some great history, too.

But first, the arch engineering … it is 630 ft tall and 630 ft wide, its design was selected in a competition won by Erol Saarinen beating 172 other entrants including his father, and it can withstand 150 mph winds by swaying up to 18” at the top. Fortunately, today we had little/no wind, bright sunshine and warm temps! Technically, its a weighted catenary—its legs are wider than its upper sections. It took 3 years to build, using stainless steel on the exterior, steel cable “tendons” encased in concrete as the interior, giving it orthotropic properties. Two huge cranes hoisted themselves on the backs of each arch, lifting sections into place until they met in the center. Crazy — see the picture here. And no one died during construction — where the steel-workers were shown never wearing safety harnesses! The half-hour movie in the visitor center tells the awesome story. We highly recommend it to all our engineering geeks friends! Also take the 4-minute tram car ride inside the arch leg to the top of the arch, where you’ll have fantastic views of the Mississippi River below and for 30 miles in every direction.

The history of this National Park is equally fascinating, describing the role St. Louis played in the westward expansion during the 1800s. Spend time in the exhibits in the visitor center.

After a morning in the national park, we did the 3 B’s … ate St. Louis BBQ, toured the Budweiser factory, and enjoyed springtime at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

At Bogart’s Smokehouse, we enjoyed the Burnt Ends platter and the BBQ salad (which do you think Nancy had, and which did Paul have, haha. (Hint: the burnt ends were oh-so-good!)

The Budweiser factory tour was a blast … 90 minute long walking tour, with some Adolphus Busch history, seeing Clydesdales, hearing explanations of the brewing process, observing the modern manufacturing line … given by an old guy (er, experienced gentleman) named Dave who retired after 40 years working at the plant and now gives tours, and who clearly enjoyed his duties and the company’s products! It was truly an old-school manufacturing plant tour, not a Disney-ized tram ride thru dioramas. Of course, the tour ended with a tasting.

The Missouri Botanical Garden was a real “find” for us, wonderful and beautiful and educational and really well designed. We spent over two hours enjoying the blooms of every imaginable tulip variety, finding a Dale Chihuly glass sculpture hanging in the Climatron geodesic dome-shaped greenhouse, and enjoying the serenity of the Japanese Garden.

And as expected of any decent botanical garden, they have honey bees on site — 3 hives, unfenced in! I walked right up and watched the bees coming and going, bringing in loads of pollen and nectar from the blooms throughout the garden. They were big, fat Italians, who had clearly overwintered well in that spot.

Today, by the numbers:

• 0 miles driven … at least none towing the trailer.

• 19.5 mpg … what the F150 gets around town, *not* towing a trailer.

• 8:16 hrs … touring park, factory, gardens … fun!

• 1 yummy lunch … see above.

• 1 trailer tire … that does seem to be low. Bought a tire gauge today that reads to 120 psi, checked all four trailer tires, and what do you know, a tire on the *other* side of the trailer than I had been looking at read 40 psi (should be ~70 psi). Filled it up to 70 psi using my Viair 400P-RV air compressor (thanks for the recommendation, Steve!), and will re-check it in the morning. Hmmm, maybe it wasn’t the TPMS sensor after all. And hmmm, maybe I need to learn to read the positions on the TSTrucks TPMS monitor better!