Day 2 - Triadelphia, WV to St Louis, MO

Bob has shared our location through google maps with our kids. They are much more engaged in this trip than any other because they are following us on google maps in real time.  

Today Aryeh is in LA, Yoni is in Chicago, Eli is in NJ, and they are all following along and are providing suggestions along the way: Eli - Graeters ice cream in Dayton, Palo Duro Canyon, TX. Yoni - The City Museum St Louis, the pods at West Virginia University. Aryeh - Columbus Air Force Museum.

On previous trips I would send daily emails to our kids (We are ok! Don’t worry!) and photos. These were mostly ignored. I would skip a few days to see if any of them would start worrying. Didn’t work. “We just thought you didn’t have phone or internet coverage.” Eli will finally be concerned that we are ok at one point on this trip when we have fallen off the map for a few days because we actually don’t have phone or internet coverage. "Here be dragons."  

At 907 miles on the trip odometer the time changes from 5:48 to 4:48. Approaching St Louis.  Earlier rain has cleared up and we have bright sunny skies, with the great lighting that comes late in the day.  Spectacular bright green fields sprinkled with yellow flowers.

We are planning to stay 2 nights in St Louis (Comfort Inn, not camping).  Although we are tired, we decide to see the Gateway Arch now because the weather forecast is for rain all day tomorrow.

We get to the park visitor center at 4:45. It closes at 5. Just enough time to use bathrooms, and ask the rangers a few questions.

We are really on vacation now! We pose for pictures. We take a picture for a Kentucky couple who are also there for the first time. “We had to put on shoes and everything.”

With the sun striking the arch at this time of day, it looks like a slice of sky.

Near the Arch