St. Louis 2010
This was a short but cool trip for us. We're just over 2 hours
from St. Louis, and we didn't have a ton of time, but we got down there
to see the arch, and then to play for a while at Six Flags.
We landed at KSUS, which wasn't the cheapest place in the world maybe,
but it was reasonable, and they could get us a rental car really
easily. We used "Aero Charter" as the FBO and they were EXTREMELY
nice to deal with. This would be a great FBO to host a centrally
located RV-10 Fly-in some day....not too much in the area to feel like
you'll miss everything, but enough to bring you and the family to see
the arch, and then meet and play with other RV-10 builders. The
biggest problem we had was something I've seen before in St.
Louis....they must not have enough hotels in the area. There was
a game on that weekend, and we couldn't find ANY hotels within 30
minutes of the arch. We ended up staying in a town called
Washington, I think, which is quite a ways out...and we even got one of
their few remaining rooms. It did have a pool though, so the kids
were happy, and it wasn't far from Six Flags, so the following day they
got to go on some cool rides.
Going to the arch itself is awesome. You can park down on the
riverfront, and it's VERY cool. Cobblestone bricks that go right
to the water, and you park right there...maybe even stepping into the
river as you exit the door if you get one of the last spots. The
area by the arch is full of people and is very scenic. It would be an
awesome park to just lay in the grass and hang out at...and it's really
pretty at night too.
We did the standard "go up the arch" tour, and also watched a
documentary on how they built it. I HIGHLY recommend seeing that
documentary...it's just amazing all the way through, and will blow your
mind how they did some things. The ride up isn't long, and once
up at the top you get a great view of the town.
At night there are some great places to eat....we wanted to get into
the Spaghetti factory, but it was literally packed with hundreds of
people and had a long wait. Had I known in advance, I'd have made
reservations, but oh well. It looks to be a very nice old sceninc
building though and we'll definitely go there on our next trip to STL
area.
As I said, it was a short trip, and we didn't take a lot of pics, but
if you live within 3 or 4 hours, it would make an awesome quick weekend
destination for the family.