Today was another tourist day. It was only 20 minutes into St Louis, and judging by the commuter traffic, I was glad we decided to stay on the outskirts. First stop was the St Louis Zoo, and I'm not sure why they have such a great zoo here, but it is a great zoo. It's also free! There is a $15 parking charge, but that's still cheap. The zoo opened at 8:00 and we were there a few minutes after opening. It was a cloudy, overcast day - as usual for this trip so far. Not many people there, so we sort of had the zoo to ourselves for the first couple of hours. They had a good reptile house, and a good bird house, including an aviary. Most of the other animals were the typical zoo animals including some great apes, though Jody really liked the prairie dogs. As noon approached, so did the summer camp crowds, so we finished up and got out. We got many great pictures using the telephoto lens.
     Down the road a few miles is the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and it was really impressive . They are having a Chinese Lantern Festival this summer, but you had to come back at night to see them lit up. They still looked beautiful without the lighting during the day. We started by taking the tram ride around the gardens to see the layout of the lands. I is quite impressive, while most botanical gardens are concerned with the variety of plants, and this place certainly had a large variety, the Missouri Botanical Garden is primarily concerned with garden design and layout. they have Chinese Gardens, Japanese Gardens, English Gardens, to name a few. They are all unbelievably beautiful. They even have a Victorian Maze! They also have a dome leftover from the St Louis Worlds Fair called the Climatron. Inside it is setup like a tropical rain forest.
     Since we finished up at the Botanical Garden around 3:00, it seemed like a good idea to travel the few miles left into the city to visit the famous St Louis Gateway Arch. They do actually have a tiny elevator that rides up the arch, but I had already decided my fear of heights would prevent me from any attempt to pursue that foolhardy adventure . But still, we shouldn't visit St Louis without at least taking a picture at the Gateway Arch. Well, had I investigated a little closer, I would have found out that there is no specific parking at the arch, and you just need to park somewhere downtown and walk over.
     Unfortunately, most of that area is under construction, what with the gambling casinos nearby. So the Garmin was no help at all. And the roads down by the waterfront are mostly cobblestone, not the smooth, even cobblestones of a modern restored street. No, the frost heaves have taken their toll on these cobblestones over the years, and they are up and down, uneven, potholed and generally a mess. I did manage to keep the bike upright. After circling around the cobblestone block a couple of times, we finally found the line for a parking lot, but when we got to the attendant, she said "No motorcycles here, Honey - You just need to find a spot on the street."  So we gave up, and decided to head back to the hotel. On the way back, we stopped at the side of the road to take a picture of the Gateway Arch. That was the closest we were going to get.
     We got back to the hotel about 5:30, warmed up and headed out for dinner at a local place called the 54th Street Grille. Interesting decor, big elephant head on the wall, motorcycle and drag car hanging from the ceiling. Food was good - burger for me and fajita's for Jody, coffee was terrible. Tomorrow it's an early start, with a stop at the Mark Twain Caves in Hannibal along the way, we expect to be in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by tomorrow night.

63.7 miles today
2082.5 miles total

0.0 gallons today
49.385 gallons total