Greetings from Missouri

I have been remiss in blogging lately. Again. Its been a busy December. After a whirlwind weekend in DC for my mentor's surprise retirement party, I came back to Denver to kickoff a project I recently won. I have been running my own proposals since June, which includes picking which staff to propose, drafting up a detailed cost proposal, and choosing which projects showcase our ability to complete the work. On my fourth proposal, I finally won! Ok, Berger won, but I like to think I won. And I guess I did, as I am now sitting in my hotel room in Van Buren, Missouri, anxiously awaiting my first internal scoping meeting/site visit in the morning.

When I told my sister that I was running an internal scoping meeting, she immediately laughed and said it reminded her a colonoscopy and asked if that's what I would be doing on this trip. I innocently explained to her that in my line of work we also have agency scoping and public scoping. It didn't help her giggles.

But anyhow, that's how I found myself driving to the airport yet one more time before flying home for Christmas. I flew with one Denver staff member and was meeting a DC coworker in St. Louis before traversing together for 3 hours to the park. While the Denver folks were already scheduled to arrive an hour before Emily, our DC counterpart, her flight was delayed and we had two hours to kill before she landed.

We picked up the rental (a REALLY nice new Jeep Cherokee), googled the address for the Arch (Technically the "St. Louis Gateway Arch: Jefferson National Expansion Memorial"), popped it into my phone's GPS and headed that way! I thought we'd only drive by and say "hmm, yep - there it is!" But we parked and headed over.


We were too close to fit it all in one picture. As we walked towards it, alone in an empty field, I couldn't help but thinking, well sure its big, but is that it? (thats what she said?) I found out that there is a whole museum/lots of signs for NMac to read located underground beneath the arch. My coworker Jack remembered traveling up inside the Arch as a kid, so we headed to the ticket counter to see how long a trip would take. We were in luck - the lifts went up every ten minutes and one was leaving now!

I was a bit skeptical to see the doors to the lift:

We were sent up in little pods and I discovered I might have a touch of claustrophobia. But it was worth it when we got to the top


And then I took a picture looking straight down:
I think the Arch was probably the best of what St. Louis has to offer, though, with the exception of maybe Sam Bradford (yum!). We quickly got back to the car and off to the airport in plenty of time to pick up Emily.

While we had to drive down a sketchy road to reach our hotel, it seems like a decent place. Its a bit odd that they don't have a clock or hairdryer, but at least they have wireless. The website had mentioned dial-up would be our internet option, so it was a welcome surprise.

Think of me tomorrow as you are cozy in your homes. While it was 62 in Denver today, the high in Van Buren won't get out of the 20s and will be spreading a wintery mix as we venture from site to site. Nothing if not an adventure!