Heart of America: Day 6 and Day 7

Day 6 and day 7 of the Heart of America MLB trip consisted of a lot of driving. On day 6 of the trip I drove from Oklahoma to Kansas City. In Kansas City I met up with my friend Chris and his fiance Amanda to go to the Royals game. I got a hotel outside Kansas City so we could meet up beforehand and carpool to the stadium. The hotel was also close to I-70 so I could get an early start the next day to St. Louis. My ballpark experience at Kauffman Stadium will be written in another blog post.

Day 7, the final day of the trip, was a long, long day. It started off early by leaving my hotel in Kansas City early in the morning. I arrived in St. Louis at 10:15 for the 1:15 game because I still needed to find a ticket. On Stubhub there were slim pickings for tickets and they were over $40. I lucked out and found a girl scalping ticket as I exited the parking garage. I ended up buying a bleacher ticket for only $25.

After I bought the ticket I made my way down to Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. This memorial is home to the Gateway Arch and the surrounding park. Park maintenance and food vendors were setting up a stage and food stands for a concert and air show later in the day. Even though the visitor center was packed I was able to take a tram to the top of the arch without much wait since I was not with anyone else. The tram to the top consisted of several small "pods" that fit five people. It was a little claustrophobic but the trip to the top went rather quick. The view from the top was pretty cool. I got a good view of the river as well as downtown St. Louis. I didn't have time to go through the Museum of Westward Expansion at the visitor center but that might be something for the next time I am in St. Louis. After I can down from the top, I headed out to the Busch Stadium for the game. My experience at Busch Stadium will be written about in a separate post. After the game, I got back on the highway and drove towards Ann Arbor, making it back to my apartment at 2:15am.