I was making good time on my all night drive and with a few catnaps and a limited amount of caffeine (which really doesn’t tend to always help me I’ve discovered) I figured I’d make the Gateway Arch by Noon.

One stop along the way was the Will Rogers rest stop on the eastern side of Oklahoma.

Once I was in St. Louis I started to follow the Google Maps directions until I realized it was leading me away from the Arch. I’m still not quite sure where it thought I wanted to go, but after resetting it twice and being VERY specific the final time I was headed east towards the river. I had hoped to find a free spot along the side road I had parked when heading west, but the spots were full. I knew there was at least one garage that I could get my parking validated at, but I wasn’t sure which one it was so I choose the first available one that appeared to have fair pricing. I quickly parked. My watch told me it was just after 11:00 AM. I had made it before Noon!

Now I was fighting two timelines: first, I wanted to get to the ticket kiosk as quickly as possible so I could get the first available ticket, even if it meant the ticket was much later in the day. The second was, my bladder was beyond full!

I walked quickly to the entrance and went inside and turned to the ticket counter. Or rather, I turned to where the ticket counter had been literally a week and a half ago. Now it was completely boarded up with a sign, “Ticket Counter closed for renovations”. I was in a panic. All that driving for naught? Then I spied another sign with a QR Code that explained I could use the URL to purchase my ticket or go to another counter somewhere else in the visitor center and buy a ticket. I breathed a sigh of relief.

But my bladder now was screaming so that was my first order of business! After solving that I went back to the QR Code and scanned it. Turns out, that while the Reservations.gov website couldn’t provide me tickets on line, there is in fact an online site to buy them! This means I could have bought them the night before and taken my time driving here! Oh well. Such is life. The first available tickets were at 1:00 PM. Glancing at my watch I saw I had plenty of time. I bought my ticket and also received a discount because I’m a National Park Holder (still the best $80 I’ve spent in a long time). I then headed back to the car to swap into some cleaner clothing, put in my contacts and grab my National Parks passport so I could get it stamped. Then I headed back. I got my passport stamped and then headed through security to check out the displays while I waited for 1:00 PM to arrive.

On the way down I saw a monitor that showed boarding times and it said that the 1:00 PM ticketholders could start to board in 5 minutes. I thought this was a bit soon, but figured it might be a large crowd so I hurried. Then a thought crossed my mind. I glanced at my phone. It wasn’t 11:55 as my watch said, it was 12:55. Again I had passed time zones and forgotten to update my watch. No worries, I apparently had time and got in line.

Turns out the line was far smaller than I expected. Here a little background on how one gets to the top of the Arch. As a video explains, because of the shape, a standard elevator wouldn’t work, nor would an escalator. The solution is basically 8 “cars” on a string that each sit in a ring with bearings. As the cars move up the Arch, they rotate so that the passengers are always upright. While I believe this is all done by gravity, I did notice that several times along the way up, the sound of a motor and the car righted itself a bit. I suspect there’s there’s both passive and active measures occurring.

Each car can hold 5 adults, but it’s a tight squeeze. So if you do the math, that’s 40 people per trip up. There’s one tram in each leg so that’s 80 people at a time when both are running (today only the North Tram was running). Given round-trip times, that’s 480 an hour.

While in line, the guide asked who was in what groups and then handed out numbered boarding passes to indicate which car to board. I was number 7. In fact, I was the only in that particular car!

Before you board, there’s a short 1960s style animated video that’s actually a lot of fun to watch. It both made me feel old and nostalgic.

Then you line up in front of your particular car. They give you a safety briefing. The main details are the doors are only 4′ tall so duck when you enter and do not try to take photos as you enter.

Once boarded and the doors close you start to move up. It’s not obvious from the photos, but first you move to what would be the left of the photos above and then up and then as you move up, to the right (technically I was in the North Tram, so first you move to the North, then up and to the South)

There’s a window in the door so you can see the structure of the Arch, including the stairs of the 1,076 step emergency evacuation staircase.

Yes, I was grinning Cheshire cat the entire way up. A dream of a lifetime was coming true.

The top did not disappoint. I knew the observation windows were only 9″ tall so I thought it would be a tight view. I also had thought the observation area would be much smaller than it actually is. From the ground you get a false sense of scale. It’s actually fairly roomy (though I suspect with two full trams working and 80 people being up there it would be a bit crowded. All told we had perhaps 30 people including employees up there).

The ride up is about 4 minutes and the ride down is about 3 minutes. This with 3 minutes of time to board at the bottom means you’re given about 10 minutes to see everything. I thought I would feel rushed, but I wasn’t. Finally it was time to head back down.

After the ride down I visited the gift shop and then started to head out. I had been texting a friend about a quick visit and wanted to get there in time.

This said friend is someone I’ve known for over two decades now and is somewhat a mentor to me in the cave rescue community. I knew he’s definitely a mentor to another close friend of mine. Sadly though, said mentor was diagnosed with cancer several years ago and it has now since metastasized to his liver. He texted back that he’d probably be up for a visit after his hospice nurse left. Home hospice… that’s where he’s at now. That said, as he reminded me when we did talk in person, Jimmy Carter was on hospice for three years, so who knows how much time is left.

After leaving the Arch I headed to his place. I hoped to make it not too late as I didn’t want to keep him up late. It seemed fate had other ideas. Immediately upon entering Indiana I hit a detour as we were routed around a traffic accident. Or rather, routed off the Interstate onto a side road with no clear directions on where to go from there, so we all followed our GPSs or Google Maps which took us back onto the same Interstate albeit one exit later. This did put me ahead of some of the vehicles which had not been detoured, but didn’t help much. So this put me behind schedule.

Finally Google maps directed me off the Interstate onto the backroads to get to my friend’s house. However, Google maps didn’t know that immediately after turning off the Interstate that the road I was supposed to take was closed and I had to follow a detour. This further put me behind schedule.

Then, not more than 3 miles from my friend’s house, the Low Oil light came on. I’ve had enough Subarus to know that inevitably this is due to burning a bit of oil, not a sudden oil leak. So I pulled over, put some spare oil I carry with me for this purpose in and continued. Honestly, I had sort of expected this and should have checked my oil earlier. I had put in over 6000 miles in the last two weeks at this point.

I finally arrived at said friend’s house and he met me at the door. We sat and talked for over an hour. I’ll admit it was a bit bittersweet. We talked a bit about his prognosis and time left, but focused mostly on the good times we’ve had. Besides both being cavers, we have an interest in train travel and have travelled extensively via Amtrak.

In most cases when we talk to folks, we expect to see them again, but we both knew, even if we didn’t exactly say it out loud, that this might be our last chance to catch up.

That said, he’s not really bitter or sad. He’s led a great life and he’s been the person I expect he’s wanted to be. There’s an outside chance I’ll see him this summer if we both make it to the NSS Convention in New York, but honestly we both know that’s unlikely.

So, while I reached a new high this day, I also have poignant and bittersweet memories. I’m glad I made the stop. Ironically, had I bought tickets online for the Gateway Arch for later in the day and gotten sleep on my drive there, instead of a marathon all night drive, I would not have had a chance to catch up. That was the other reason I had done the marathon drive, even if somehow I didn’t make the top of the Arch, I knew it gave me a chance to meet with my friend. So the lack of sleep was worth it in multiple ways.

So, I don’t want to end this on a down note as much as a happy note. I reached a life goal and I caught up with a close friend. It was as they say, a good day.