2012 Trip - Day 113

Thursday, August 23 - The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St Louis, MO, 218.4 Miles Today, 13,921.1 For the Trip

I took a couple of photos of the Osage Beach RV Park at Dusk. Tried to capture the hot evening feeling with the blurry moon, etc.

The last time I saw the Gateway Arch was on a trip to Colorado in 1972. I don't have any photos of the arch, so I decided to make that the destination for the day. I love the design of the arch, Eero Saarinen, the architect who designed the arch has been a favorite of mine, in fact I "appropriated" the arch for part of a design for the play JB that toured with the Southern Illinois University Design competition while I was a student at Oswego.

I shot a panorama of the arch looking up from the center of the span, but Photoshop couldn't deal with putting it together, so it will have to wait until I have more time back in Oswego. It is too bad the area around the arch is as run down as it is. While the grounds of the memorial are fine, the parking, at least for trailers, is along the river in a garbage strewn area. There is a river boat ride, a bicycle rental place, a few food stands & both horse drawn carriage & helicopter rides but all in all, pretty ugly until you hit the memorial grounds. I felt like I had to rush through the memorial so I could get back to my car before it was stripped to the chassis!

I did take a few photos of the displays in the rooms under the arch - I don't believe they were there, or, at least were as impressive when we were there in the 70's.


Night Photo at Osage Beach	Night Photo at Osage Beach	First View of the Arch	River Boat Rides

Carriage Rides	Inside Exhibit	Inside Exhibit	Arch Looking Towards IL

Arch Looking Towards MO	Site 14, Red Barn Rendezvous RV Park, Edwardsville, IL

By the time I got back to the car from visiting the arch (both the car & trailer were still there) it was already 2:00, later than I usually stop. I didn't want to stay in a St Louis campground since the reviews for all of them described asphalt parking lots without bathrooms. I looked for the closest campgrounds on the GPS & it sent me to a KOA a few miles north of the city. While there were shiny railroad tracks just .2 miles from the campground, that wasn't a problem since the campground wasn't there!

I continued on & found a review for the Red Barn Rendezvous RV Park in Edwardsville, IL, about 30 miles in the general direction I was heading. The review was favorable, other than noting that there was traffic noise from nearby I 55. Traffic noise won't be a problem since I will probably be running the AC all night. It was 102°F when I pulled in and now, at 5:15 it is only down to 96°F outside. The 11,000BTU AC in the trailer works great - in just a few minutes it has the temperature in the trailer down to 78°F. The refrigerator is working hard to keep up. The freezer climbed to 4°F while in the temperature in the lower section of the door is at 46°F; a little warm, but that is the warmest part of the refrigerator. All in all, not too bad for it being 100°F outside!

I haven't decided what to do for dinner.

Until Tomorrow -

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Last Update: August 24, 2012