If you’ve been keeping up with the blog the past couple of weeks, you’d know I’ve been talking about my time in Springfield, Missouri – if you haven’t, check out last week’s blog post by clicking the link below!
This week, you’re in for a wild ride about an adventure story to a different part of Missouri – St. Louis.
When Chris and I drove from Missouri to Indiana, we passed through St. Louis. It was cool to see the downtown area and the Gateway Arch from the highway, but I was a little sad because I wouldn’t be able to stop at the arch and get my national passport book stamped.
Did you even know that a national park passport was a thing? If you don’t, they’re a fantastic way to keep track of all the parks you’ve visited!
When you stop by the visitors center at every national park, they have the passport books displayed somewhere in the shop, alongside a stamp with the date on it. There should also be a unique sticker for each park that you can put in your passport book (depending on which one you choose to buy – the bigger one has a spot for the sticker). It looks a little something like this. ↓
Getting my passport stamped has given me the drive to visit all the national parks like no other. But, unfortunately, we haven’t been less than 3 hours away from one of our rv traveling so far – I could go by myself, but I want Chris to experience them with me, and it’s harder to make a 6-hour trip on the weekends and leave the rv.
Back to the original story…I really wanted to visit the arch, but it’s too challenging to go into a big city with a big truck pulling a 32-ft. trailer, and where we were camping in Indiana was four hours away. So my dreams of getting my passport stamped at the arch were crushed.
But obviously, that’s not where the story ends.
When we got to Indiana, I knew two friends I had just made in Louisiana at the LO Sister Conference who go to school a couple of hours from where we were staying in Indiana. So I reached out to them, and they ended up being about 4 hours away from where we were staying – yes, that’s a long drive, but seeing friends is always worth it!
Before I reached out to them, I didn’t know where they went to school. It turns out they go to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville – less than 30 minutes from the Gateway Arch.
Making plans to see them was exciting because I knew I would be able to hang out with them for a couple of days AND get my passport stamped – a win/win in my book.
I got to Edwardsville on a Sunday, and after telling my two friends about wanting to visit the Gateway Arch, we decided to go that night.
Online it said the arch didn’t “close” until 11, so I thought we had plenty of time to get into the visitors center. We showed up around 6:30 pm, and the visitors center closed at 6 pm.
First attempt: FAIL.
On a positive note, though, we got to see the Gateway Arch during sunset, and it was SPECTACULAR! The way the setting sun hit the arch (depending on which angle you were looking at it) was beautiful.
Fast forward to the following day – this is where the story gets juicy.
The friend I was staying with had a passport appointment around 10:30 and didn’t know how long it would take, so I thought I would zip downtown quickly, get my passport stamped, then meet her back at the apartment.
When I was leaving, she told me to be careful since downtown St. Louis can be pretty sketchy without a buddy. For the first time, I questioned whether I should go now or wait to go with her later, but she assured me that I should be okay because she’s been by herself downtown plenty of times.
I started to get a little nervous, but overall I felt pretty confident (especially after finding some pepper spray in the truck), so I decided to go. So my second attempt was finally a go.
I knew the first challenge I would face in the big truck was finding parking. Unfortunately, there’s not a specific parking lot for the Gateway Arch (at least one that I saw the multiple times I passed it), so I decided to look where we had parked the night before, two blocks away.
Luckily, I found a parking spot easily! However, as I got out to pay the parking meter, I noticed four guys walking on the sidewalk opposite the one I was on, and soon enough, they spotted me. I hoped they would keep moving, but they soon started catcalling and yelling at me from across the street.
Thankfully, they never looked like they were going to cross the street, but I made sure to hurry up at the parking meter and get on my way to the Gateway Arch as soon as possible.
As I walked away, with a “don’t mess with me confidence” in my strut, they continued to yell at me from across the street while they walked the opposite way. Finally, after walking a block, I found myself in an area with other people I could ask for help, and my nerves started to subside.
I’m not going to lie, though; that encounter shook me up a little bit. I kept thinking, “what if they wait until I get back?” or “will they do anything to my truck?”.
Little by little, I started to regret my decision to come alone, but I was NOT going to return to the truck and risk running into those guys again, so I continued to the visitors center.
There are a couple of things interesting about the visitors center. One, the visitors center and museum are underground, right underneath the arch, and two, you have to go through a security screen check to get in. As soon as I saw the security check, I knew my pepper spray would be a problem.
Rather than waiting for my bag to go through the security check, I asked one of the security guards if it would be an issue. He told me I had two options: either I go back to my car and leave it there, or they confiscate it, and I don’t get it back.
I had no idea what to do. The pepper spray was the only thing that made me feel better about being in downtown St. Louis alone, but I did NOT want to go back to the truck so soon because those guys could’ve still been lurking around. So after a minute of trying to decide what to do, I finally decided to hand it over to them.
RIP my pink pepper spray – I never used you, but you were a great sidekick!
After handing it over, I was a little upset and scared but immediately started praying that God would guide and protect me.
For the next 20 minutes, I walked around the most incredible national park visitors center/museum I’ve ever seen. It was filled with fascinating exhibits about the history of St. Louis when it came to westward expansion and the construction of the Gateway Arch itself. I could’ve spent hours there, absorbing every little detail it had to offer.
I was starting to get hungry, and lunch was waiting for me back at the apartment, so I decided to speed through the rest of the museum and get to the gift shop to FINALLY get my passport stamped.
As you saw in one of the pictures above, getting my passport stamped was a success! The only downside was that they ran out of the sticker for my book, so I grabbed one of the smaller stickers they had in stock to fill the space.
It was finally time to head back to the truck, and after praying a couple more times, I was heading back with a newfound confidence that God would watch over me and get me back to the apartment safely. As I walked towards the truck, the walk was easy, and the streets were clear – praise the Lord!
As soon as I got into the comfort of my truck, I immediately turned it on, pulled directions back to the apartment, and got out of there as quickly as possible.
I lifted up my thanksgiving and vowed I wouldn’t go into a sketchy area by myself again.
I wish I could say that’s where the story ended, but unfortunately, it’s not 🙃
As I was on the interstate headed back towards Edwardsville, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and noticed there was something tucked under my windshield wiper.
Any guesses as to what it was?
If you said parking ticket, you would be correct! As I was going 70 mph down the interstate, a parking ticket was chilling on my windshield. The last thing I wanted to do was pull over on the side of the road, and it had already made it that far, so I decided to wait 8 minutes until I got back to the apartment to look at it.
Bad mistake.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the parking ticket flew out from under the windshield wiper and onto the side of the interstate. Honestly, in my head, it was like a slow-motion, dramatic scene in a movie, and looking back now, it makes me laugh, but at the moment, it was anything but funny 😅.
Since one other paper was still stuck under the windshield, I stopped at the closest exit and got out to get it before it disappeared on the side of the interstate. It turns out it was just the envelope to send the money in.
Before I returned to the interstate, I found the number to call and talk to someone about my lost ticket.
As soon as a representative picked up, they asked for my ticket number. I told her there was a slight problem – I didn’t have my ticket number. Next, she asked for my license plate number. Another minor issue – I have NO idea what Chris and I’s new license plate number for the truck 😒
After being told the ticket office couldn’t help me without the ticket number or my license plate number, I was told to call back when I could get to my license plate number.
When I finally got to the apartment, I got out, wrote down our license plate number, then called back.
The representative was able to find my ticket by using my license plate number, but she said that I hadn’t paid at all. I assured her that I had a receipt on my card showing that I had paid and pulled it up to tell her the info.
It turns out that the $0.25 I paid to park doesn’t give me that much time on the meter. That’s right. I only paid $0.25. I saw the number when I was paying, but for some reason, it didn’t register in my mind that I should’ve checked how much time it was giving me – my mind was more on the fact that four guys were yelling at me from across the street, I guess.
I had to pay $20 for the violation, but at least I made it back safe and sound.
To all my female friends out there, please stay safe, especially if you’re planning on going out to explore alone! There are some crazy people in this world, and some spots may not be the best for solo exploring.
Well, that’s all from me this week! I hope you enjoyed this crazy story of mine – I’m sure there will be more to follow (hopefully not ones that include me exploring by myself 🤪).
If you haven’t done so, subscribe to Close to Creation’s YouTube channel. While you’re at it, check out the latest video where I let Chris write the Q&A questions to introduce myself and the channel to y’all. There are some interesting ones in there 😂. Click here or the link below to watch!
Have a great rest of your week!
Kaitlin ☼
