Road Trip Day 5: Gateway Arch & Little Rock

Though our tickets were not until 10am, we were up early (see the sunrise in the below pictures), so we thought we would see if we could go into the Gateway Arch at an earlier time.  

Since we had no problem at all switching to an early time (apparently it is just hard to get a later time), we were scheduled to go up at 9:15am, so we made our way over to the arch and snapped about a million (okay, okay, maybe only like 50) pictures of the arch before heading inside for security and gift shop shopping, since we still had about 20 minutes until the tram would go up.

We were in the first set of trams to leave for the day and so nothing was crowded and it was a great blessing as we only had 3 of us in the pod car.  I am not normally claustrophobic but I could maybe see it being a little crowded if you had 5 people in there and then made it to the top and it was super crowded there too!  But the views were incredible and the experience was unforgettable, so this definitely topped my list of favorites for this trip!

Cardinals stadium from above

View of the Mississippi River

Old Courthouse Building, which is now were the Park Rangers have their ticketing office for the Arch

Pano View

picture taken about 630 feet in the air!!

Waiting for our pod car to arrive

After the arch, we were on the road again.  But this time our trip took us on some cute almost back-roads into Arkansas!  The day was beautiful and the trip was enjoyable!

We arrived in Arkansas and CJ checked off her 49th state!

Me having no numbers, apparently felt pressure to pose....

After all the states I have been to, I have to say Arkansas definitely does it right with their signs and tourist info.  We stopped in at the welcome center for some information and were greeted with a friendly smile, a bag of brochures and some Arkansas pins just for stopping it!  I loved the enthusiasm!

After only a brief bit into the state, we stopped at Pinnacle Mountain and it was easy to see why Arkansas is called "The Natural State."  The view was beautiful and full of lush greens everywhere.  This was just one of many many mountains in the area; we were able to make a short walk up the mountain for some beautiful views.

Unfortunately, we did not get to meet Jim Bob and Michelle, like I had hoped for, but we did enjoy some of the beauty the state had to offer.  

We also did a drive by of Little Rock Central High School on recommendation of one of our clients.  I was amazed at the vastness of this high school.  It was so big and is still in operation today.  "This was the site of the most prominent national example of the implementation of the May 17, 1954 supreme court decision on Brown v. the Board of Education, where nine African-American students' bravely persisted in attending a formerly all-white school."   We have all seen the pictures, when the troops were brought in by President Eisenhower to eventually protect the students, I cannot imagine what life was like for them.  Having to have an escort to school everyday to ensure my safety.  Quite an amazing history...

We also made our way to River Market in Little Rock and enjoyed some live music and a yummy dinner by the River before making it back to the hotel for the evening.

Tomorrow it is off to the Clinton Presidential Library, maybe there will be a Hillary sighting???