St. Louis Flooding

I drove downtown today to take a look at the flooding. The water is up to the bottom steps of the arch, and has covered the street along the river (lenore k. sullivan blvd).
















Washington Avenue is partially flooded as well. (This is from the top of the 2nd street parking garage looking towards downtown)


















The park ranger I talked to said he didn't see what the big deal was, that in '93 it was over halfway up the steps to the arch. This picture was taken standing about halfway down the arch steps looking towards the Poplar Street Bridge (downriver).




Apparently a muskrat burrowed under the levee in Winfield last night and caused it to break, the quickly built a second barrier but it broke as well, Winfield is now flooded. Many other towns upriver are flooded now or in danger.

Canada Recap

Okay, so the blogging day by day while in Canada broke down when I actually prioritized sleep over blogging :)

So Monday was no Whales. Tuesday: went to sessions, some good, some not so good. Went to vendor fair and lunch, got some cool stuff. Left that early (saw everything already) and Pierre and I went walking around downtown for a bit, then drove over to the botanical garden. Turns out the garden is a 1.5 mile hike down a hill, we didn't go.

We did meet a nice young man, singing in the park, his name is Sean Wesley, he told us he made it to the top 60 on Canadian Idol this year before being kicked out (we agreed its rigged).






I then dropped Pierre off on campus and headed back to the hotel, but got distracted. Parked and walked up the pedestrian bridge over the river and took some pictures, then went to the hotel to pick up Christine. We then got stuck in traffic and were too late for the closing ceremony.





So we headed back to the hotel for an hour or so then went down to Officer's Square for the closing dinner. We were looking forward to the lobster, but turns out its COLD and is not as fresh as it should be. Christine was a little put off by the whole lobster thing. We ate, watched the changing of the guards then went off down to the Snooty Fox where we had a few drinks and called it a night.

The flight(s) back were not as bad as the ones to get there, at least I knew about the whole bag thing this time, which I had to do in Toronto. We had lunch at Tim Horton's in Montreal airport where the menu was all in french, but boy do they have good doughnuts. We had to do Toronto at a brisk walk to make it in 50 minutes but we did it without many issues. Got back to St. Louis about quarter til 5, got my back super fast and Matthew picked me up and headed home.

Overall it was a good trip, tiring, but we learned a lot. I'm home for a week then I head out to Salt Lake City for training.

canada, no whales

had breakfast in the hotel, no weird pancakes
went to good session on wikis and another on downloading.
had a very quick lunch. got on the bus for whale watching, rode 2 hours to St. Andrews, got on the boat. it was VERY foggy.








Didn't see any whales, much of anthing actually, except for herring and salmon farms.








came back (2 hrs on the bus, i took a nap), had a snack and a drink and am now going to bed. Not going to edit photos tonight, too tired, so the ones I uploaded are SOOC.

Fredricton, Sunday

Today was rather uneventful. Slept fairly well last night, considering. Went to breakfast (pancakes were weird), went to opening speech, which was great, the guy talked about all the things I was working on already and is a Flickr 365'er on top of it! ate fruit. went to a session. ate lunch. went to a session, came back to hotel for a nap (didn't get to sleep but did get to rest). went to the pub for drinks. ate dinner. did the t-shirt exchange (mine has a devil goat on it). went driving around with some others a bit, got caught in an infinite loop around/across the river. went to the pub for drinks and 2nd dinner (didn't eat much at the first one). There is a great beer, Rickards White, yummy. Don't worry, pub is in walking distance of the hotel, less than a block away actually :)
Going to make a couple phone calls and call it a night, try to get some more sleep.