Doug and I spent our 2nd day in St. Louis today. Yesterday it rained and rained and rained, but we still went to the St. Louis Basilica and Union Station. Both were beautiful and full of history. Union Station back in the day was one of the largest and busiest train stations in the nation and it was where Harry Truman held up the famous newspaper announcing him the winner in the Presidential election against Dewey. The Basilica is the largest mosaic art exhibit in the US. It took over 70 years to construct it. The guy who conducted the tour was a good Catholic and was so interesting. We ate at a place Vito's. The pizza was yummy. A young guy waited on us and I felt like he wanted to sit down and visit with us. It was kinda nice and annoying at the same time. We awoke to rain, but didn't let it keep us from our sightseeing. We first went to the Missouri History Museum. The Charles Lindbergh exhibit was my favorite. It was fascinating. St. Louis is full of history and I would enjoy spending an entire week here seeing all the things there is to see. We then went to the Arch. I wanted so badly to go there yesterday, but because of the rain we didn't. But seeing it for the first time driving toward the city was thrilling to me. I never thought I would get to see it. I don't know why I have thought that. But I was so excited to see it. Walking toward it and standing at the base was mind boggling. We didn't have to wait at all to go up. We were told it could take hours to get to go, but I guess because of the yucky weather there weren't many people going up. Doug and I were fortunate because we didn't have to share the tram ride up or down with anyone. The little car could hold five people and we had it all to ourselves. After that we went to the museum, which was interesting, but by that point we both were museumed out. We then went to Charlie Gitto's restaurant. It is a 3rd generation Italian restaurant. Our waiter was Steve and he made recommendations to us. We both had the same dish (shocker) and it was AMAZING. Charlie Gitto's has famous people come in all the time. Today while we were there Mark Sweeny was there.
We then went to the old courthouse where Dred Scott sued for his freedom. It has a cast iron dome. It was beautiful.
Tomorrow I begin the training that brought us to St. Louis and Doug gets two more days to sightsee. I'm looking forward to more. It has been such a fun time.