Historic Route 66 - Day Three

Day three of our travels on route 66 didn't involve a lot of driving.  We are staying at a KOA about 30 minutes west of St. Louis and we are staying on Route 66.  It's a great place to stay and it's nice to be able to go back into the city without the trailer attached. 

 

Historic Route 66 is and was sort of a profusion of "optional", "city" and "truck" routes in St. Louis.  Other areas are areas that even the EZ Guide book says should be skipped. 

We went to see the Arch on a Sunday.  If we have to do any city traveling we seem to find Sundays a day to do it when there isn't much daily work traffic.  Sure there are more people out and about, but this time of year it isn't too bad.  Randy bought a combo ticket for us to go to the top of the Arch and to take a paddleboat cruise on the
Mississippi River.


The Arch is beautiful...it makes you wonder...how does it stay up and how did they do that?  Technically the Arch and surrounding area is the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.  Inside one of the legs of the Arch contains the Visitor Center, Museum of Western Expansion, Gift Shop and access to the towers.

We took the trip up to the top....the ride up there is the real experience.  You climb into a little "pod" with a 4 ft high door and seats for 5....make that small seats for 5.  You have to scrunch up and bend your head.  The ride up takes 4 minutes...the ride down takes 3.  There's a lot of stairs to climb...both before and after you get out of the pod.  You can stay up on top as long as you like. 

After our Arch experience, we walked across the street to get the on the paddle boat "Tom Sawyer" for our river tour.  We decided there really isn't much to see along the river in St. Louis...but there is so much they could do with it.  The weather was very nice and it was a nice cruise.

We drove over the Edward Jones stadium.  Randy wanted to get is picture taken with the Seahawks flag in front of the stadium, but there was nothing on the outside of the stadium to even show that the Rams play there, so we just scrapped that idea.

Our next goal was to get Historic 66 and find Ted Drewes Frozen Custard.  We found it and tried our first "Concretes".  Very good.... It's a very busy place with walk up service only.  They have several benches along the street so you can sit outside and enjoy your frozen custard.

When we left there we were going to find another one of the "giants" that Route 66 is famous for.  Apparently, the giant farmer and son have been removed.  We found the spot and there was nothing there.