Year 3, July 16th, 2018: Monday, V2, The City Museum and the Gateway Arch

Oh, my goodness, what a whirlwind of activities so far!  The kids got up way early today, and I was not pleased because it was only 6 am local time.  I thought, "What in the world? They never get up this early at home!" and forgot that we are an hour behind our home time.  So, I was kind of mean and told Jared to handle them.  I was already starting to feel tired and achy from Keturah's head cold she's given me (more on that in future posts).  So, Jared kindly took the kids to breakfast and then to the other "house" aka Grandma and Grandpa's room, so I could rest.  It made a world of different to sleep another 90 minutes!  Everybody ate well and we were out the door pretty much when we said we would be. 

First up, was the City Museum, which is a junkyard of sorts.  All kinds of old things mashed with new things and the whole thing was a maze of a playground.  Small spaces, dark spaces, cages in the middle of the air, old planes, fire trucks and buses, old engine parts and pencils.  American Ninja Warrior spaces, toddler spaces, under the sea, and in the treetops and everywhere in between.  It's hard to describe it, really.  You could spend hours and hours climbing around and down and in and out and never see everything.  At one point, Abishai took off and Jared had a really hard time keeping up.  In fact, Jared came back huffing, puffing, and sweating profusely.  We had the backpack leash on Abishai, thank goodness.  But that kid is fast and it's much easier for his little body to maneuever into those tight spaces.  In fact, Benaiah couldn't fit through some of those spaces and had to turn around.  Benaiah sweat so much that he soaked the brim of his new CIY hat!  The boys and Grandpa did the 10 story tall slide, while Grandma and Keturah made special snowflakes in the art studio.  Abishai was very afraid of the all the climbing stuff suspending on the outside, especially since some of it was 4 stories tall.  Keturah didn't even attempt to go up there.  The boys went all the way up to the second airplane.  It was so fun, but so exhausting.  Such a unique place, and they don't give you maps on purpose!  They want you to explore and discover new things at every turn!  We ended up eating lunch there because we knew Abishai would fall asleep on the way home.

He didn't fall asleep right away though.  He also had a dry diaper this morning and then again when we went to the bathroom at lunchtime!  Yeah!  He did sleep fine with Keturah in the pull out bed, too.  I stayed in the room with him for 2 hrs laying down resting my back, which made all the difference again before we went out to see the Gateway Arch near dusk.  But first, the men had to deal with a flat tire!  We had hit something in one of the alleys near the City Museum, and Jared even said "I hope didn't hurt my van!"  Well, it did!  But by the grace of God, we made it 30 minutes to the hotel before it was finally out of air.  It truly was providential that we all made it back to the hotel safely.  I couldn't imagine what it would have been like out on the highway!  So Jared called roadside assistance and looked for a place to get a tire.  They ended up getting the spare on but Gary just went with the other car and bought a new tire.  It's our "souvenir" for this trip, lol.  He brought it back and they put it on just in time before we needed to leave to make our tram ride up to the top of the Gateway Arch . We had to make sandwhiches for the men to eat on the way downtown because we were running behind schedule.

But, we made it to the Arch and got some outside pictures before going in.  I didn't get a family shot like I wanted because I thought since we were in a hurry to make our tram, I would just get it afterwards.  Well, it was too dark when we came out and everybody wanted to go home.  So, I got what I got I guess.  The Gateway Arch is a gorgeous monument/national/historical park.  The entrance to the museum and the trams was open and modern, thanks to some remodeling recently I think.  Abishai was super, duper excited to go see the arch and when he had woken up, he was fully awake in 2 seconds when we told him.  He had seen the Arch as we had come into St. Louis yesterday, so he knew it was something special.  Went through security and had plenty of time to make it to our tram cars to go to the top!  I should say "pods" because that's what they were!  I know they've been slightly updated, but to think that these pods have been in use every day to bring passengers up and down the inside of this massive structure for nearly 6 decades is incredible!  The Gateway Arch is an architectural feat that everyone should see!  I could not get enough pictures of it!  It only took a few minutes to go up and down in it.  We heard clicking as it shifted in a gentle arch to the top.  It's not like a regular elevator where you go straight up.  It's more like a ferris wheel, so the pod has to adjust itself.  But it wasn't scary. You could see out into the stairwell through the doors so you could see how fast your progressing.  The door was only 4 ft tall and the guys had to scrunch down in their seats.  But it was way cool!

And then the view from the top were awesome!  But more importantly, it was weird to think that there wasn't much between us and the outside in any direction, suspended in the middle of the air.  The windows are tiny because of the pressure of the arch (physics) so you could stand in the middle and not really notice how high up you were.  But at least some of us were really excited about the views of the old courthouse and the Cardinals stadium, or of trains and the steamboat dock.  Abishai kept chattering about the things going on below, always shimmying up to the windows as you'll see in the pictures.  He kept sharing information with complete strangers he owned the place.  Meanwhile, I guess the other kids and the grandparents were done and/or scared and/or having a bad moment, so they decided to tell Jared that they were leaving the top without asking me about it.  I would have stopped them because I wanted to get more pictures of them at the top!  I always think that we will have never have another chance to do this, so make the most of it!  Don't be afraid to get those pictures!  So, I was very unhappy and I let them know that once we caught up with them.  It made for a very rough end of the day.  They had also left the top so they could watch the documentary that was included in the ticket price.  We were late by like 2 minutes, so we walked around the museum part instead.

The museum for the Gateway Arch focuses on the westward expansion that came after Thomas Jefferson puchased the Lousiana Purchase.  St. Louis became one of the main ports on the Mississippi and gateway literally from the east of the Mississippi to the west.  Half of the museum was dedicated to how awful we white men treated the Native Americans.  I'm not dismissing it that the Indians got the bad end of the bargain, but we could also tell they had an agenda.  I read a few panels while Jared had Abishai.  Sidenote, I could not deal with Abishai and his potty training and his being stimulated by people or things without Jared to help me.  He does the majority of the work since he knows that I'm using up all my fibromyalgia spoons to walk around these attractions.  In fact, I'm sore in places I didn't know I had a problem with.  11,800 steps today.  Normally, I'm lucky to make 4,000.  But I managed.  We got outside near the pillar after the sun went down and since I was unhappy about that, I walked down to the river's edge by myself.  It's not every day that I get to see the famous Mississippi River in all it's sillage.  That let me cool down and we went home.  Sometimes, when expectations aren't articulated well, there's a lot of disappointment and resentment.  Maybe it's just me that's really picky.  I don't know which.

Abishai went down easily for a nap and so did everyone else.  It was a a great day for everything!

I love looking out for the differences between cities and how they mark things.  The overpasses have these cool signs with the street names on them.

The biggest hospital I have ever seen!  Our hospitals probably are just as big, but are spread out into different buildings and over more acres.  This one is sky high!  And that catwalk on the left, unbelievable!  It is called Branes-Jewish hospital.  I've never heard of a Jewish hospital either.

There she be! The Arch as you are looking east.

I was so excited for the City Museum!  Many of our friends have visited and shared pictures of themselves up on the walkways suspended in mid air.  I won't journal every picture, but enjoy just SOME of the sights you'll see!

Not one but two shells of airplanes!

First floor, entrance.  Slide on the left comes down from the third floor!

Abishai was deathly afraid of the cages outside where it was up to 4 stories down to the ground.  We started here because it was going to be hotter later in the day.  Keturah didn't do much of the outside, and the boys ended up doing it in the middle of our time there.

It's all safe, promise!  But you could loose a cell phone out of your pocket or a pair of sunglasses, lol.  No naps, just go explore!

Kind of scary going up these small spiral stairs.

In one of the planes.

Ah! Way up high!

Alot of the architecture is just welded together random bits and parts from a junkyard.  It's a work of modern art!  It had to be designed, obviously, to be safe, but still, crazy! These stairs are parts of airplane wings.

I can only imagine the thought process of the artists involved.

We didn't go up this way, but there's no net, just these wire cages.  You could get your foot stuck!

Narrow spaces, with narrow bars, and a slanted floor.

Safe spot to calm down inside of a fire truck.

One of the slides.  I'm not sure if this is the 4 story or 10 story one.

10 story slide? Worth the long line?  The heat? People stopping in the middle?  Not so sure.

Hidee hole.  It was hard for me to walk through these places with the big camera because I needed both hands to climb.

One floor had more ocean type things and it was obvious that they were revamping sections of it.  Here's Abishai in a secret tunnel.

Just climbing up a giant squid!

Octopus entrance to the deep dark caverns.

Taking a snack break.

Oh yes, they give you bands with space to put phone numbers because little ones do get lost often!

Big fish!

Interesting fancy things.

Time to go down into the deep dark caverns.  Under the sea maybe?

Into a whale, with lots of climbing tunnels on either side that are just big enough for little kids but not big enough for adults.

The boys crossing a bridge!  We did split up a bit with Grandma taking Keturah, Grandpa taking the older boys and Jared and I handling Abishai.

That's Benaiah in that shell looking tree trying to climb up inside it.  Can he make it?  Barely!

We weren't sure if the fabric hanging from the ceiling represented baleen or ocean water or crystals.  But there goes Justin climbing through it.

And now Benaiah, who had to turn around because he got stuck.

Grandpa took Abishai with him.  They turned around, too.

Just a random sloped wall.

It takes a creative genius to plan all this out.

A metal climbing "tree" looking up the 4th floor.

And looking down to the 1st floor (I was on the second level I think).

Yes, some kids could climb through there.

Trying to chase Abishai was a multi adult task.  Jared got way out of breathe keeping up.

Grandma and Keturah spent a good amount of time working on some very cool looking snowflakes.

Tipsy turvy chairs that looked like tops!

Round and round he goes.

A whole floor dedicated to parkour!

Warpped wall of sorts.

This climbing maniac!  Wow!  So strong, so fearless, go, go, go!

Justin on the warpped wall.

Climbing and crawling, creeping along.

Wheee!

Run, run, run, in a curved circle!

It was much harder for Benaiah to run around in a cirlce than it was for the other two boys, but he made it!

Abishai found a hiding spot and didn't want to come out!

Why yes, Abishai has enough upper body strength to hold onto a rope or at least a minute!  Benaiah wanted to do it but wanted to be able to put his feet on the bottom knot for support.  Meaning, he doesn't have enough upper body strength to hold up his own weight.  I certainly don't either.  In fact, I didn't do very much climbing and crawling.  I wanted to do more outside, and I did some inside, but not as much as these guys.

These are pencils from all over.  #modernart

We found the toddler area!  Can you spot Abishai?  Hint, he's wearing a horse on his back. He was not at all afraid to climb inside this structure.

He loved the big ball pit!

Perfect size for little guys.

Rest time!  Grandpa taking a nap!

He was hoarding all the trucks under the turtle.

They were working on something as sparks from welding equipment were flying everywhere!

Keturah's dolphin snowflake!  Very pretty and it took a long time!  She's going to give it to Everly, who also loves dolphins!

Benaiah signing to Grandma because it was SO LOUD in the museum.

Same kind of climbing structure outside, but somehow it feels safer inside.

There was a little circle show Keturah and Grandma watched in this little room.  There was also a little person train that Abishai would have loved it had been running.

City Museum, check!

iPhone pictures, so going back to the beginning:

The DSLR doesn't work as well in the dark (and I haven't figured out all the settings and I don't want to use flash), but I got a few on my phone.

Yes, you needed a flashlight at some parts.

Which way to go?

Abishai swinging like the monkey he is!

He did not fall off!

Not quite the picture I was looking for but we were tired and sweaty and weren't about to climb around again to find the perfect spot.  We made it through the City Museum!

Abishai's pretzel grilled cheese that others ate instead of him.  We ate there at the museum because it was just easiest and we didn't want Abishai falling asleep before we found another restaurant.  He was upset earlier because he had been up since 6 am and it was way past lunch time.  We ate about 1:30pm.

EWWWWWWW.  Benaiah's new hat is soaked in sweat!!!

Stone structure at the entrance.

You can Keturah's face in this one.

Uh oh!  On the way "home" from the City Museum, we hit a pothole or curb.  Well, praise God that the tire wasn't completely flat until we reached the hotel!  And yes, it had to be completely replaced!  Ouch!  But the men got it done before we had to drive again to make it to the arch, so all was well.

So stinkin' cute sleeping away the afternoon.  He plays so hard!  Then if he naps too hard, he's up until 10 or 11 pm!  It's a delicate balance.

Never ever had real, 100% pure citrus oils to styrofoam cups.  They eat through them!  I went to take a drink of my tea after adding the essential oils and found that it was spilling on me.  Why?  Because of that huge hole created by the oils!  In fact, if your lemon or orange essential oil does NOT do this, then you know it's not 100% pure.  Oops!.

Fixing the tire.

Since I didn't get a treat at the City Museum, Jared picked me up a pop at the local drugstore.  I stayed with Abishai and rested for the afternoon while the men fixed the tire.

Just a little TV time while we wait for the men to be done so we can go see the Gateway Arch!  We had a picnic supper in the hotel before we went.

A car load of boys! And Jared got to drive the car load of all girls/women.  That's fun!

These will be so out of order chronologically, which drives me nuts, but I don't want to take the time to fix it.  So here goes.  I'm glad I at least got a few pictures of the arch before we went in, because it was getting dark when we left.  I'm still sad that we didn't get a full family photo.  Next time!  But I do think the Gateway Arch is one incredible architectural feat for when it was built.  It's so pretty, too, simple in overall design, but the way the sunlight hits it and how tall it is marking this very important port city on the Mississippi.  I don't think a lot of people in our generation really appreciates these types of historically significant places.  I gain a greater appreciation and understanding the more I teach it in our homeschool and the more I actually get up close and personal to these locations I have read about for years and years.  History is VERY important.  As someone once said, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.  I still think it is most important to know the big ideas and concepts and reasons behind certain events than the exact dates and locations of said events (maybe because I have a horrible memory), but if you can know those exact dates and locations, then more power to you!  I know my walking encyclopedia of  husband is much more apt to know these things.  I wish I had a photographic memory like his!

The iPhone pics of the arch were loaded first I guess, but here goes.  Here's the teeny tiny door we went through to get into the pod that takes us up to the top of the arch.

Ready? Here we go! 

Panaromic through the east side of the arch looking at the muddy mighty Mississippi.  I was amazed at how awesome the shadow of the arch looked across the Mississippi (and I'm going to get tired of typing that name and sing songing the letters to myself so I can spell it right, lol!)

Top of the arch selfie! (See, I told you that I'm going to get more selfies!)

Panoramic view out of the westside of the arch at the Old Courthouse in the middle and the Busch Stadium to the right (south) where the St. Louis Cardinals play.

Yes, that's the south leg of the arch I can see! Amazing that we came up in that relatively small leg and that just a few inches separates us from the outside and that the sheer physics of an arch is what makes this all work!  God is amazing working through engineers to create this structure like 60 years ago and it still stands!

Arch behind the St. Louis Cardinals baseball stadium.

So many angles, so little time!

Sweet!

So beautiful!

It's so hard to fit it all in one picture unless you have a wide lens and you know how to work a camera properly, which, I don't know how.

Yup, check this national park off our list!

I guess they just finished updating the entrance to the park and it is so airy and beautiful!

This is the side of a large TV screen.

This is the same TV screen!  Huge!  They had four of these playing different movies about the Westward Expansion as you walked into the museum.

They have to replace the cables every few years, so they sell these in the giftshop made out of the cables.

Of course there's a children's book!

Since it was Thomas Jefferson who was president when the Louisiana Purchased was bought, he was featured a few times in the museum.

Nice.

This is a cutout example of what we will experience when we get up to the top of the arch.  Justin was very leery about doing it.  I'm deathly afraid of heights, but this didn't seem too bad because the windows were really small.  They have to be small because of the pressures of the arch itself.  Leah said that Nina, her sister in law, stood right in the middle after glancing out one window, until the rest of them were done when they were visiting it years and years ago, because she, too, is very afraid of heights.

St. Louis is a much, much older city than Indianapolis, believe it or not.  This just shows you how important boat travel on the Mississippi was instead of horse and cart.

Heading underground before going up in the arch.

This kind of felt sci fi ish where we had numbers and were going to be in certain pods that would shift sideways as we went up.  Only 5 people per pod, so we had to split up.

Abishai was super excited to go up in the arch and kept talking about it over and over.

Instructions as it gets very squishy up there.

That means 40 people can go up at a time.  It takes 4 minutes to go up and 3 minutes to go down.  You can spend however long you like up at the top.

They played a video on the concrete walls before we went up and Abishai was fascinated by it.  He tried grabbing the movie elements.  I'm not sure what the point of the movie was except to show some history that maybe possibly connected with the Arch.  I think it was more like artistic propaganda with no real point.

Walking down the steps to line up for the pods.

It's hard to imagine that a lot of this is the same as it opened many years ago.

A little tiny opening and they said to not linger to take pictures.  Just get in because the doors close quickly.

They played movies on the doors while we waited for one group to go up, unload, reload with other passengers and come back down.

Who's ready?

Yes, there's a gap between the doors and the many, many stairs going up to the top.  I was grateful to see the inside of the arch.  I think at one point you could take the stairs, but because of all the security risk these days, only employees can.

They only picture I got of the four of them looking out over the Mississippi.  I guess the middles got kind of scared and they all wanted to watch a 30 minute movie so they went back down way before we did.  I turned around to look for them and they were gone.  I was disappointed because I wanted to show more things to them, but had gotten caught up in the moment myself.

Bridges to the north.

Little tiny cars, lol.

Bridges to the south.

Busch Stadium.

Northwest side.

Better view of the Old Courthouse.

Hi. My name is Justin. I'm afraid of heights. But I made it to the top!

There's a train down there going in the tunnel, Mommy! -  Abishai told several others the same thing!

He was fascinated with being up high and looking down at the small boats and vehicles below.  He kept scrambling up the edge to get to the windows.

I don't think I would tired of this view.

A good example of how wide the top is and how low the ceiling is as well as the curved floor.  It was pretty cool!

Riverboat!

Still looking out.

Awesome picture of the stadium!

I touched the ceiling!

On our way down the stairs to the pod to go down.  It's very crowded even with just a few people.  Remember there's open hair just a few inches to the left of us.

Sound panels.

Doors to the launching pad are closed and our clear doors, too.  The clickity clack of when the pod shifted to the side wasn't too bad.  Just a weird way to ride in an elevator.

Abishai loved it.  What does Abishai not love?  He isn't afraid of small spaces, so that's good.

Looking down.

So neat to see the inside of the arch.

Nice cutaway model of the skydeck.

So here's a cross section of what the pods look like. This must be from when the come out from the bottom because it doesn't match the archway itself, right?

To scale replica of the national park with the arch.

I did click on a few things and learned a bit more about the seating arrangements of a stagecoach.  I was interested because that's the primary transportation in a TV show I'm currently watching.

Just a few things from the frontier.  I feel like a lot of these things were extra and not many people actually owned them as they traveled west.  They couldn't afford them.

A different style of log cabin where the logs were vertical and the chinking (or whatever the mud is called that is between the posts are called).  That was pretty interesting.

This was a cool optical illusion where you could see who all owned the territory around St. Louis at different times.  I think there was a French flag, American flag and this flag.  I forget what it was called though.

Lots of focus on how white man displaced Indians.  #revisionisthistory  #propganda Yes, we have not treated them well, but you could definitely tell there was an agenda in this particular exhibit.

More Thomas Jefferson stuff with books from his personal library.  He loved learning about the west.

Traveling west.

This is what happens when a barrel full of china from Europe comes across the ocean to the America's and is dropped on the dock.  I've never seen them show something like this in a museum before.  Not everything goes perfectly when traveling, eh?

OO, this stumped Jared!  It's one of those sliding puzzles I used to do for hours growing up.  There are certain algorithms you do to get to work out.  Jared didn't know them!  So I showed him! You sometimes have to displace several blocks in order to get one in place.  And you do it row by row.  I win!

Jared and Abishai wandered the halls while I looked through the museum and the others were in the movie.

Looking at the south leg of the arch in the twilight.  I had to take most of these pictures with the iPhone because of the low light.  By tapping in the middle of the phone, you can easily fix the aperature to let more light in, so I actually got quite a few good shots despite it being twilight.  But at first, I was so mad that we had come out so late and hadn't gotten the pictures I wanted.  These just might be better than I thought I would take.

North leg.

The curves on this thing!

South entrance of the museum/visitors' center.

Pretty riverfront.  Great job, iPhone!  I actually walked down there despite the family's pleas not to.  I wanted the kids to come with me to see the mighty Mississippi, muddy as it is, because this is what carried goods up and down for 100's of years.  But they were exhausted and annoyed at me.  I like to linger and linger I did.

On the shores of the Mississippi.  I decided not to go down on the actual shore and touch the river this time. It's pretty gross.

Perfection.

Selfie up above.

The sun was reflecting off of the sparkles on Keturah's shirt onto the angled sides up in the arch.

Nice view of the north leg.  Amazing!

There ya go, almost 2 miles above the earth.  Ah!

Crowded but not unbearable.

Still in awe.

Goodnight river front.

Steamboat.  You can pay to go on a tour on the boat.

Twilight.

A streetlight is lighting up this one.

The end.

I can check it off my bucket list now.

Someday I might see a baseball game here.  I love baseball.

Half naked baby walking down a city street just because he can.  I think he had gotten his shirt wet from a water fountain and he can't stand a wet shirt.

In the garage we parked in, each floor was coded with a color and not a number.  Interesting!  And parking is super expensive everywhere we go it seems!

Last random picture.  That's the stairwell on our way up the arch.  Some parts were wider than others.

The End of St. Louis Day 1, phew, that's a lot!