We have the full day in St. Louis today and we did this for two reasons. Number one because of the Gateway Arch, of course. It’s a national park and the second national site we’re visiting. The first is the Lincoln home, which is a national historic site. I wanted to go ahead and get my lifetime pass for national parks and historic sites and I purchased one at the (ubiquitous) gift shop at the Arch. Eighty dollars well spent. I also have two stamps in my national park passbook now. Secondly, St. Louis is a big city and we wanted to spend a little more time in some of the larger cities because (our feeling is) there are more options in a large city.
So yesterday we took some great pictures of the Arch. It was sunny and blue with wispy clouds and the perfect day for taking pictures outside. Today is cloudy and cooler and I was glad that we took our outside pictures already. Also, since it’s Monday, there are fewer people at the park and our wait time is a little less to go up. Yesterday I said that going up was not decided for me. Looking up at the top of the arch from the outside is really daunting. Today when we walked there I was feeling pretty calm about going up. My only caveat to this is that I did not look up at the Arch prior to going inside. What you don’t see can’t scare you, right? Well anyway…
After that exciting afternoon with Duncan at the hotel in his kennel (where he doing so well now), we decided to have a dog park dinner. One of the staff members at the hotel told us about a great new dog park in St. Louis that has a huge indoor space, a full restaurant, three bars, and a huge outside play area. All of the area is totally fenced in and tended by a staff that is very attentive to the dogs and intervenes before any dogs get out of hand. The dog park is called Bar K. We decided to give it a try for dinner so we took the car and drove there.
Well, it was everything he (the staff member) said it was. The entrance process was very easy. Each one of us filled out a form on one of three iPads located at the entrance. When we completed the forms we were each texted a bar code which would be our unique identifiers anytime we came back. The cost was a flat ten-dollar entrance fee for Duncan which got him in for as long as he stayed until closing time. Duncan was extremely happy about the experience and took to the park and the other dogs with energetic glee. Dan and I hung out around him for a half hour or so to make sure he got acclimated all right and then headed to the main bar / restaurant. We immediately ran into the hotel staff person that referred us here and he was with his son. After greeting him and thanking him for the referral we ordered dinner and a drink and watched Duncan through the windows and cameras. It is by far the best dog park idea I’ve ever seen.
