Essentially the Only One

I decided to chase the sunset tonight.

There are too many trees, buildings and hills in my neighborhood to get a really good view, so I got in the car and drove north into St. Charles County.

I left late and the sun was descending fast. By the time I got to a clear, open, area it was almost below the horizon.

I was close to the village of Portage des Sioux. I thought it might be worth driving down to the Mississippi riverside to see what it looked like there.
There was a lot more water than I expected. I drove through the village and down towards the statue of Our Lady of The Rivers. As a rise came up and then the drop to the river bank, I hastily stopped.

The road was completely flooded.

A pain for the locals, I am sure, but it made for a very pretty view.Ahead of me lay the flood water. Standing in it, there was the statue of Our Lady. Unapproachable now except by boat, but still lit up and glowing. I waited until it became a little darker and then headed home.

I had a free day today, so I filled the CD changer in the car with six Martha Argerich solo piano recordings, loaded up the cameras and headed out up to Highway 100 in Illinois.

It was miserably wet and foggy day, and even driving up to the lookout point in Pere Marquette State Park provided little more than bare trees and fog hanging over the floodwaters from a very full Illinois River.

Nonetheless, it was a very relaxing drive on the nearly empty road, with lots of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Ravel as accompaniment. I continued on to Hardin, crossing the river on the Joe Page Bridge. A lovely vertical lift bridge completed in 1931 - you can see the lift span in the photograph above. I've never seen it raised and today was not the day to hang around in Hardin waiting. Another time. But I stayed long enough to enjoy a Subway sandwich in the empty restaurant.

On my way home, this dead tree with flood waters behind it caught my eye. Something about those boughs collecting around the base as they fall away. High up, you can see a solitary bald eagle silhouetted against the white.

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.

More shots from the Illinois River at the Glades/12 Mile Island Wildlife Management Area.

Essentially the same shot as here, except with tilt on the horizontal plane instead of the vertical.




This is all that remains of a wooden dock; this whole area was under about 2.5 meters of water during the spring floods and all the horizontal planks were ripped off by the current. The ground is silt, drying out in that distinctive cracked pattern.







The riverside damage was extensive, and those houses that had not been built high on stilts were flooded.

The whole area had something of the feel of a ghost town, except people were slowly returning and repairing their damaged property. Add to that the active river traffic with ski and pleasure boats passing every few minutes, and the green vegetation springing out of the rich silt and any sense of desolation was dispersed. Nonetheless, the very obvious marks of flood damage were a reminder of the power of these great rivers.

Here's a clear example of the floodline on the side of this wrecked house. A sticker on the front door from the Illinois housing dept. marked this building as unsafe until inspected; it certainly looked like a muddy mess from what I could see through the windows. I felt for the owners.

I walked across Eads Bridge this lunchtime to get a good view of the swollen Mississippi. Normally there is no one there at all, but today was a very different story.

A jogger I might expect, and indeed I saw two, but there were couples and children, earnest looking gentlement with cameras, office workers and most astonishing of all, a video crew in the midst of conducting an interview.

Just who the man clutching the green clipboard might be, I do not know, but he was very voluble on how the weather patterns in the Midwest were changing as a result of global warming. Floods such as these would be a frequent occurence, he asserted, requiring a whole new approach to river management.

Perhaps he is right. I do not know, and I tend to be suspicious of anyone who claims to predict the weather. One thing is sure though - it is a lot wetter here these days.

Riverfront parking garage, St. Louis, about 1 p.m.

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