Gateway Arch NP-Backtracking

I *knew* I had taken pictures during my 2010 trip to the Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis, Missouri. I found the ones posted here on my Facebook page. I’m still hopeful that I will find the rest on the camera I used or the computer to which I uploaded them.

Unfortunately, the only things I can say about the visit are that I had also hoped to go on a riverboat tour on the Mississippi, but the river was flooded. None of the riverboats were offering trips to tourists.

Also, there was an air show during my visit. The newstory about the show helped me place the date of my visit as July 4th. I got some photos of the show from inside the Arch–as well as of downtown St. Louis–and some from the ground.

I hope that I will get a chance to go again at the end of September. If so, I will, of course, share that here.

National Parks So Far

In the meantime, though, I will take advantage of this opportunity to update my list of national parks I’ve visited. The link to the National Park Service’s page is followed by the link to my blog post about my visit:

A couple of days ago, President Joseph Biden announced the addition of a trio of memorials in honor Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley  to the U.S. National Park Service system. The closest will be in Chicago, but I will have to plan to visit a later time.

Also, the news has been loaded with stories about the heat and other weather effects being experienced this summer. According to this story, temperatures at the Death Valley National Park this year are threatening to surpass the current global record of 134 degrees set in 1913. When I visited Death Valley last October, the forecast for the day was only 98 degrees.

One last comment–I think. I’ve been hoping that the Barack Obama Presidential Center (his presidential library) would open to the public before I left the area. However, based on the updates as of July 3, 2023, they are a ways away from that point. The projected opening is late 2025. Since I’ve become less and less enamored with crowds over the years–and COVID only made things worse on that front, I’ll look towards fall of 2026.