Wed arrived in St. Louis without incident.

We settled into our older but very nice hotel quickly and decided to walk to the Gateway Arch.

The architecture is sometimes familiar and similar to California but often a different style is presented to us.

We walked by the Cathedral on our way. it is a lovely building and we will visit it again with a guide in a few days.

It was a long haul downhill to the Arch. The city is clean for the most part but is still struggling to tempt people back to work downtown.

There are many retail stores still shuttered and we were told that the population of the city is shrinking each year.

It is a sad state of affairs.

We walk 12.7 miles easily but were fooled by the pleasant breeze. It was actually warm and humid and felt that we might have taken too much by the end of the day.

We have found all of the people on this trip, so far, across the country to be very friendly and helpful.

We will go onboard our ship in a day or two. We always like to come early to get used to the time change and to see a few things without being rushed.