Day two.

On day 2 we went to the St. Louis zoo and the Arch. I've only really been to the Louisville zoo, so I got to see some animals I hadn't seen in captivity before, like the grizzly bears and the chimpanzees. The chimps were pretty fun to watch. My kids also got to fulfill a lifelong (almost) dream of going to Build a Bear Workshop and making an animal.

After the zoo, but we headed to the arch. There was a line so I asked the guard there how long it would be and he said about 30-40 minutes. I was concerned because some of our party didn't want to go up to the top and would be waiting for us, so I was relieved to hear it would only be 30-40 minutes. Unfortunately, the guard was wrong and it was about 2 hours total. After we were searched and went through metal detectors, we had to go stand here and then there and then stand here and then there and then don't line up but stand close to the podium because we can't have a line (I have no idea what that was about), then more stand here and stand there, and now here and now there until we were very tired of waiting but finally we got to go to the top. It was pretty cool. We rode in very small pod-like trams to get up there. They were about 4 1/2 feet tall and about the same in width. The view was pretty amazing, but it was hot and crowded. We only stayed about 10 minutes but I do think it was worth it, kind of a once in a lifetime thing. The picture above is of people standing below us by the edge of the river.