Surfing The Channel

While traveling in Missouri, from St. Louis to Kansas City, you’ll find great places to stay by going to any number of Anniston hotels , then head out to enjoy some equally great sights:

In St. Louis, of course, there’s the famed St. Louis Gateway Arch , 630 feet tall (in fact, the highest man-made monument in the U.S.), where visitors may take a tram car to the top, viewing the city from the windows, and feel the gentle sway of the gigantic structure.

The tram cars fit about four to five people each, and travel upward at a rate of four miles per hour, departing every ten minutes. The last tram leaves at forty-five minutes before the monument closes; however, if you’d like to miss the crowds, then arrive before ten a.m. in the morning. Four million people visit the riverfront area and the arch each year, and it’s open each day with the exceptions of Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving. In the winter, the arch is open from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon; during the summer, you’ll find the arch available from eight in the morning until ten at night.

In Kansas City, you’ll find a lesser known but fascinating attraction regarding the Steamboat Arabia. The Steamboat Arabia Museum is dedicated to an incredible find in 1988, a side wheeler steamboat buried in a field half a mile from the Missouri River, uncovered 132 years after it sank in 1856.

At the time of the sinking, the boat was three years old and had made a number of trips on the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In September of 1956, the boat hit a walnut tree which tore a hole in the hull. The ship was evacuated, although a forgotten mule died in the incident. The Arabia filled with mud and in a handful of days all signs of the boat were gone. Salvage attempts were made in the 19th Century, but failed. Eventually, the river changed course, rolling a half mile east of the sinking. In 1987, a research team found the spot and used heavy equipment, including a 100 ton crane and 20 irrigation pumps. The boat emerged out of solid ground. Its cargo was surprisingly intact.

At the museum, you’ll be able to see much of the cargo and how people lived in the 19th Century: Hundreds of detailed buttons for clothing, china plates, wooden planks for pre-fabricated homes for the Old West. There are even jars of preserved food, kept so well by the mud, that it’s still edible; although only a few people have tried them.

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