Essentially the Only    One

After the weekend's rainfall, the Mississippi River is at flood stage. At lunchtime today I decided to take a train trip down to Eads Bridge to see it at its height - or close to it anyway.

I got off at the East Riverfront Metro stop and began to walk back to St. Louis across the river.

A lot of debris was coming down with the flow, including a good number of uprooted trees. They looked small from the bridge but these were large chunks of wood. Nothing you want to get in the way of. I noticed that there was not a lot of river traffic. Probably the barges were laying low until the river settled a bit.

Much of the drift wood was piling up against obstacles stinking out from the banks. Here you can see it collecting near the Casino Queen riverboat.

It was a bright clear day, with crisp shadows. I decided to occupy myself taking a few shots of the Eads Bridge walkway with the outline of the railing.

I soon found myself thinking in terms of line and form and was happily looking for geometry that pleased me.

As I was doing this, I heard a honking behind me and little scooter whizzed across past and very close to me. I wondered why he was not on the road, but he yelled a cheerful 'hello' at me, so I didn't really feel that put out. Shortly there followed a rather grim looking power walker who didn't seem to be really enjoying the day as he should. Perhaps his encounter with the scooter was less friendly.

I walked further on and taking the photographs you see above. A large group of young people then came by, looking rather determined. I wasn't quite sure why, but gave them no further thought.

A little later, I ranged the camera in their direction and took this fairly unremarkable photograph.
Or so it seemed. Something didn't seem quite right about it. I looked up and the group was walking further away.

Not until I got off the bridge and looked at the screen on my camera in the shade could I make out this rather extraordinary pose. A young woman was leaning over the bridge railing, held up only by her feet hooked into the ironwork. My stomach turned when I saw it. I know she was alright because I'd seen her walk off with the group, but she'd done one of those stupid, yet strangely exciting youthful things that can lead to disaster but usually does not. But if she'd fallen... I'm too old to enjoy such stunts.

The Mississippi River is close to its forecast crest in St. Louis today, and we went down to the riverfront this afternoon to see it.

We started by walking across Eads Bridge (the long arched bridge in the top photograph) from the far (Illinois) side back to the city. Again, there were a lot of people on the walkway looking at the rapidly flowing mass of muddy water.


From the bridge you could see the riverside road completely submerged and the riverfront restaurant boats cut off. The park rangers had erected barriers to prevent people in the Westward Expansion park - site of the arch - from getting too close to the water. It had covered up the lower steps of the stairs leading down from the park to the river.


After we exited the bridge walkway, we walked into Laclede's Landing, the conglomerate of bars and restaurants right by the riverside. The water was reaching well up into this area, but only parking buildings were flooded.

The most affected riverside attraction was the President Casino based on the gleaming Admiral riverboat. The boat floated, of course, but the same was not true for the entrance. No gambling here at least for a while. All to the benefit of the Casino Queen on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, no doubt.

Laclede's Landing at 12:50 p.m.

The Mississippi in St. Louis at about 12:20 p.m.

Mr. E., Mr. B., Pirate Princess and Dan the Man arrived at about 4:30 a.m. Or so I believe. I slept through the arrival and it was only as I stumbled out of my cabin to see Princess and Mr. B on the living room sofa bed that I realised they had arrived.

Now the crew was complete. It was time to head off into the unknown - or at least into a two day journey with an overnight beached on some shore.

With the Captain keeping a close watch on Mr. E (and the rest of us), we set off. First downstream into the open river.

We had to watch for islands and wing dams. The navigation channel would weave from one bank to the other. Always well marked with buoys and day markers, but you had to stay alert.

My wife and her sister proved to be among the best pilots, but by the end we were all doing well. I spent much of the time on the top deck looking for birds, most of which stayed well away.

Oh well.

After a few miles downstream we turned, and reversed our course.

This took us past the S&S Rentals and under the Lansing bridge. I could see and hear cars going over the steel lattice of the bridge deck.

A striking sight.

We continued onward, searching for a clear spot to beach the boat. This was Saturday and there were a lot of people on the river. We had to travel quite far before we spotted a small beach on what looked like a narrow island.


The Captain turned the boat and brought us in as if he had been doing this all his life. After this flawless landing, we settled in to drink and eat.

The evening was cool and completely free of biting insects, so it was a pleasure to sit outside and watch the night draw in. A gentle breeze brushed the trees and the birds - persisently staying out of view - serenaded us. It was hard not feel seduced by such a naturally beautiful spot.

It took us all day to drive from St. Louis to Lansing, Iowa, and we arrived as the sun was setting.

Fortunately, Lansing is not an expansive town and we found S&S Rentals on Front St. without any difficulty.

The Captain and his skeleton crew were already aboard, but only ahead of us by about half an hour.

All of us were tired but there were bagels and fruit to eat, cocktails made, and by the time darkness fell we were feeling considerably mellower.

I walked out into the night air with a beer and my camera to enjoy the view and breathe in the clear air. It was warm, and a few mosquitos bit, but nothing to fuss over (and certainly nothing at all compared to last year's Ontario jaunt).


We selected cabins to sleep in - tiny, closet-like rooms that fit together as snug as a wooden brick puzzle. The beds were comfortable and the gentle rocking of the boat lulled me to sleep in no time at all.

Next morning we decided to head into town for breakfast before setting out on the river.


The cabin boy and I walked along the single track railway that led up to Main Street, an aging line that seemed too decayed to convey the giant trucks of the Canadian Pacific railway that trundled by every few hours or so. But it did.

We stopped at Milty's Restaurant for a delicious breakfast of eggs and coffee, enlivened further by discussions of politics with the waitress.

Then it was back to the boat to meet Jack who was our trainer and guide for our first sortie onto the Mississippi.

And an involved training it was too, with an hour spent going over controls, equipment and charts before we even left the jetty. Necessary, though. A lot of traffic went up and down the river, ranging from canoes to giant commercial barges, and all of it had to be negotiated in our surprisingly hard to control houseboat.

Ours was a single engine craft, adequately powered but not particularly responsive to the wheel requiring considerable concentration on heading and steering.

The Captain was selected by Jack as the boat's master, and we went through all the drills. This included learning how to beach the boat perpendicularly to the shoreline, hold it steady, and secure it with sand anchors.


After a few tries, the Captain got the hang of controlling the unwieldy craft, and we took Jack back to the dock to unload him and set off downstream and back for a short exploration. This gave me, the cabin boy and the rest of the crew a chance to steer the boat. It was not easy.

While the channel was clear this was not a problem but when we came close to a large barge we needed to be careful.

But we didn't hit anything, and by the end of the afternoon we felt pretty good about our abilities.

Our first night at S & S Boat Rentals in Lansing was spent moored to the company jetty. Upstream we could see the Lansing road bridge, the Black Hawk Bridge.

Maybe we've reached the flood peak for St. Louis & the Mississippi River. Only a little bit of Lewis or Clark's head above the churning water today at lunchtime. I took this photograph from almost directly above, leaning (a little too much for my vertigo-friendly taste) over the railing of the Eads Bridge walkway.

Below is the more conventional shot. Not really very much different from yesterday's. Maybe an inch more of water.

Graph by NOAA

A beautiful, warm, spring day today, so I made my not infrequent lunchtime trip down to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial park to walk and take the air.

There was a quite a crowd today, gazing in amazement at the Arch towering above them. I sat right underneath it and soaked up the sun. It was refreshing and reinvigorating.

As I sat, mothers and babies, tourists with cameras, joggers and Park Officials came and went, giving the scene a lively sense of happy activity.

I walked down to the riverside. The tour boats were in operation, and doing good business for a day this early in the season.

The river had dropped considerably; my friends Lewis and Clark were now well out of the water.

It was good to be able to read the plaque on their pedestal for a change - that had been underwater for at least two months.

I strolled on down the gently sloping cobbles on my return from the far south end of the park. There was a lot of silt deposited on the bank; probably not the healthiest mud either in terms of biological or chemical constitution. The next big rainstorm will wash it away.

While I was looking at this, and had wandered about half down the length of the river, I glanced up at the Arch. There it was in all its glory, but close to where the cobbles end and the road begins, I saw a black shape on the ground.


What was it?



I walked closer in. It was the body of a man, his head covered with a black jacket, lying there in the sun. Beside him were the plastic bags that are the sad marker of so many homeless people.

I looked at him for a long time. Above me, where I had been sitting under the Arch, there were many people lying similarly prone in the sun. Sleeping. I gave them no second thought.

Yet here was this man, doing just the same? I felt uneasy - I wondered if I should disturb him. Was he really just sleeping? I couldn't tell, but surely here in this relatively well-traveled and open spot, what else would he be doing?

In the end, I just let him be, figuring that he was simply catching up from a sleepless night. Still, he was a poignant reminder that the happy scene I saw above was only one side of life in the city.

This disturbed me and I moved on.

What also disturbed me was his similarity to the images I have seen of dead bodies, murdered or otherwise, in countless dramas. The dead driftwood around him only added to the sinister effect.

As I said, I let this be, but I'm still wondering about him now.