Route 66 Road Trip Day Seven: Twelfth Night At St. Louis Gateway Arch
Our hotel in St. Louis was at the foot of The Gateway Arch, a national symbol and one of the many masterpieces of Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen.
A Visit To The St. Louis Gateway Arch
After arriving at the Hyatt St. Louis at 2:00 am (where we were upgraded to a nice suite), we slept in and then had breakfast at 10:00 am.
View from our room
This Hyatt Regency had no Regency Club and the breakfast was not great (the kids did not like their choices), though it was nice to have an omelet.
After loading up the car, we walked outside the hotel, where The Gateway Arch was right across the street.
I love the travel connection here. Eero Saarinen was the mastermind of the beautiful passenger terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport and the TWA Flight Center (now the TWA Hotel) at New York JFK Airport.
There’s a museum under the arch as well as elevators that will take you up to the top (which we skipped because it was a very cloudy day).
We happened to visit “The Gateway to the West” on a special day: the 12th day of Christmas celebration or Twelfth Night, the night before Epiphany, which is celebrated by feasts, games, and dancing. It was an important day in French Louisiana and is still celebrated in France (among other nations) today.
I loved the cultural connection and Heidi and I both looked at the volunteers in period garb with a bit of envy: how complicated our lives are right now and how nice it would be just to spend a Saturday volunteering for the National Park Service…
I spent time last autumn in Saint-Louis, France, which is just over the German border (my father-in-law likes to do all his grocery shopping in France). It was great to refresh my mind about the deep French connections to Missouri and the fur trapping that was pivotal to the economy for decades here.
Before departing on our final leg to Chicago, I stopped at a coffee place called Catalyst.
The barista named Todd was such a gentleman…we had a wonderful conversation while he made my (perfect) cortado.
We had a fairly uneventful daytime drive to Chicago, stopping for Starbucks for Heidi and for gasoline, but otherwise driving all the way to the north suburbs of Chicagoland without drama. If we had more time, I would have loved to stop in Springfield, Illinois to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
She wanted a snack…
This was the night before a big storm came in, so we were happy to avoid any unsafe road conditions.
When we finally arrived in Chicago, we were famished. I found a little Mexican restaurant in the village of Bannockburn called Nativo and it was delicious…we all loved it and I loved the scrumptious mole sauce on my beef short ribs. Mole sauce is made with chiles, rich chocolate, spices, and tomatillos and when it is done well, it is one of my favorite sauces. Great guacamole too.
A little ironic that we skipped the Mexican Food in New Mexico only to find it in Chicago…
After dinner, we retired to the Hyatt Regency Deerfield. It was close to 0ºF outside…not the kind of weather I am used to!
I know the purists are unhappy that my “Route 66” road trip did not closely follow Route 66, but we had a lovely time and hope to take future road trips. What a beautiful country the United States is, with so much diversity in terms of landscape, climate, topography, food, and of course people. It was a lovely trip.
Thanks for reading!
This trip report covers my road trip partially retracing old Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago.