My Big Road Trip, Part 2

Opening Day in the new Busch Stadium
Originally uploaded by deliriant.

So I wrote about the first part of my big road trip awhile ago - got a little lazy there. Here's the second part, St. Louis to Omaha.

So after a long and pretty uneventful drive from DC, we stopped in St. Louis, where Adam is from. We were there for a few days and met up with his sister there as well. St. Lou is a pretty nice city, I'd never really spent any time there. The downtown is big, which is always suprising to me after being used to smallish buildings in DC. The inner burbs where Adam's folks live are nice, and were a lot bigger than I would have expected - St. Louis metro area is pretty large, about 3 million. We ran some errands stuff and went to a neat nightlife area, the Loop, which is near Wash U I think. The crowd seemed more relaxed than your usual DC bar crowd, but still seemed like young professionals, so that was cool.

the future
Originally uploaded by sparkles..

Adam and Liz are big Cardinals fans, as are the whole fam, even the grandma, which was kinda funny. Adam said that people tend to stay in St. Louis for their whole lives, so I guess that makes sense. We went to a Cardinals game at the new Busch Stadium, which is a really nice stadium. The view is fantastic (pictured top), you see the Arch and lots of downtown, and the facilities are really nice too. I liked it more than Camden Yards, which is saying a lot. The Cards played the Reds, and I think the home team won.

I left the game early so I could get to the Gateway Arch, which is walkable far from the stadium, both are right downtown. The arch is pretty interesting, you go underground into this dark visitors center and wait in line for awhile until you get close. Then you get in these crazy, tiny little space capsule looking things, five people jammed into them, sitting down. I couldn't sit up straight either, I had to bend my neck over. Then the thing starts going up. At first it goes straight up, but as it gets farther up the arch, it begins to rock back and forth as it goes up each step - kind of like if you were lugging a bag up a flight of steps. The ride is pretty interesting. Here's a picture (left), but it seems smaller than that.

The viewing room
Originally uploaded by glynnish.

The view from the top is actually not that impressive. It's decent, and you are pretty high, but what I liked most is that the floor is still curved (pictured at right) which is pretty neat. You can see down into the stadium and can see a lot of downtown (pictured below), and from the other side you can see across the Mississippi and into Illinois. So I stayed up there for a few minutes hanging out, and there is one neat plaque that says "elevation 620 feet" or some similar number at the apex, so that's cool.

After that, we left for Omaha. The drive was pretty uneventful, and we didn't spend much time in Omaha, as we got in late and left again earling the morning. Seemed like kind of a blah city. Reminded me a lot of Knoxville. I didn't see Conor Oberst or Rilo Kiley anywhere either.

Downtown
Originally uploaded by Steve and Brooke.

Stay tuned for the next episode on my road trip, full of further adventures, in which we will visit a crazy drug store, get trapped by bison, and other cool stuff.

Here's the first episode, and the next episode (number 3).