Normally when me and Andrew go on dates, we tend to do the same thing. It’s been hard for us this summer to get together because I work mornings/afternoons and he works nights. But when he does have a night off, we usually do our normal date and go to a restaurant to eat. It’s quick and easy, which is probably why we do it so often, but it’s pretty much become habitual. So I’ve been trying to think of more creative date ideas.

In case you didn’t know, St. Louis is the home of America’s largest monument: the Gateway Arch. Even though I live just about twenty minutes from it, I haven’t actually been to the Arch since I was seven or eight. (It’s kind of funny how tourists to your city see its monuments and jewels more than you do.) So I thought it would be fun for us to picnic at the Arch grounds and then go up to the top.

It was so much fun. I love to picnic and it’s not something I do nearly enough. I packed a blanket, some fruit, sandwiches, and water bottles. I took the afternoon off of work (psh, it’s not like I’m a broke college student or anything………) and we headed downtown. It was such a nice day, which made it even better. Normally July weather is sweltering hot, but there was a cool breeze and we didn’t even break a sweat!

I wore a white dress with red flowers on it. We found a spot in the shade where we could easily see the arch (or at least it’s “foot” as I like to call it. Andrew likes to be technically correct and call it the “base,” but I think “foot” sounds much better). I hadn’t been able to see him really since I went to Puerto Rico, so I was able to share that with him while we munched on our sandwiches and fruit.

I had jokingly said to him, “Now you just need to feed me grapes and fan me with a palm leaf.” And then, like the competitive dorks that we are, had a competition to see who could throw the most grapes into the other person’s mouth. I totally one, six to four. Though, every time a large group of people would pass by I would pause because I was embarrassed, haha. Andrew, on the other hand, had no shame. I think the passerbys encouraged him and he pelted me with more grapes.

When we were finished and the bugs were starting to annoy us, we headed inside. We went to the ticket counter to purchase tickets to the top but it was going to be a two and a half hour wait. O.O I’ve no idea why it was so busy on a Thursday afternoon, but we didn’t feel like waiting around. We bought tickets to a movie about how the Arch was made and just did that instead. At first the movie opened up with this old man speaking in a monotonous tone and we both kind of groaned, afraid that it was going to put us straight to sleep. It was really interesting, though, and we learned lots of fun nifty facts to throw at people now, haha. (Like no one on the entire project died; if anything was 1/64 of an inch off, the whole project would have failed; when putting in the last piece, they had to pry the top two feet apart to fit it in.)

There’s an old, famous candy and ice cream shoppe downtown called Crown Candy that I’ve only heard good things about. I’ve heard friends talk about how good it is and it’s a St. Louis staple. Since I’m not downtown often enough, I had never been there and wanted to try it. Plus it’s me and Andrew, and we love candy.

It was a cute little shop with a candy/chocolate counter and all kinds of flavors of ice cream. Andrew bought some chocolate for his mom and Oreo ice cream while I got a banana split. I was still kind of full from lunch, so I was not prepared for the monsterous thing that they gave me. They put it in a large shake cup and I probably ate about a third of it before I felt like I was going to puke. But it was very delicious and if we’re ever in the area again, we’ll probably stop by.