31. 32. 33. St. Louis, Muncie, Syracuse

31. 32. 33. St. Louis, Muncie and Syracuse Photo Album

Today  the  plan was to drive to St. Louis making our way east..... towards home. So we had a really relaxing breakie at the campsite near the lake which was quite a beautiful lake. The drive took about 5 hours to go to St, Louis. As we arrived in the city of St. Louis we remarked how quiet the downtown area was ....and how cleannnn it was.


 It was unfortunate we would not be able to stay very long it seemed like a very interesting city...next time i guess!!! So we found parking near the Gateway Arch and proceeded to the visitor's center. I had no idea this was a National Monument....so I quickly reached for my National Parks Passport book and went to stamp the appropriate page at visitor's center. As per usual we went to watch the movie explaining the 5 w's of the arch.


this is the video we saw...                                     part 1

part 2

After watching the video we bought a ticket to take the tram up the south arch. The north arch was out of commission as they were performing some construction near it.  The tram (orb like ) was so small it was hard to believe we would sit in there with 3 other adults.  It took 4 minutes to ascend to the top and 3:30 to descend. There are 8 orbs in total 40 people can go up at once. Anyway once we got to the top , we were 630 feet high above the city and the Mississippi River. We took  photos from tiny slits and stayed for about 15 minutes. 

it was really interesting seeing the city from above. We saw the old courthouse and Busch Stadium
where the Cardinals play.  I would recommend the $10 fee to go to the top... well worth it.











So we had to rush out of there because Peter had reconnected with a Dorval friend who now lives in Muncie Indiana with is wife, Yoko and their beautiful and extremely talented daughter Maya. She's a violinist. Ray and Yoko are both professors at Ball State University, piano and voice respectively. Ray's parents were also visiting from Mexico.  It was a fabulous evening. Yoko and Ray were wonderful hosts and Maya was a very delightful teenager.

 I learned so much that night because this was a very musical family. Ray's dad, Michael was a cellist

for the MSO and his mom, Janet had perfect pitch. So it's was no wonder Maya is so gifted , she also has perfect pitch and plays the violin like a child prodigy. Her violin is sooo expensive as it it a restored violin well over 100 years old ..

We enjoyed a delicious salmon supper and then chatted in the living room as the men were reminiscing about their childhood....we were enjoying ourselves immensely and left around 1:30 in the morning...needless to say we stayed in a hotel that night!!!






The following day we decided to make it all the way to Syracuse New York.....we could see the finish line so we didn't mind putting in longer driving days. It took us about a 10 hour drive but so worth it because we would only be 5 hours from home!!! We stayed at Green Lake State Park.  It was very nice as well. I was getting very excited to go home!!!

love always

Mary and Peter