An Over Arching View

Well, I finally did it. After growing up within about 70 or 80 miles of it, living in St. Louis a couple of summers, spending a summer there as a kid, actually walking up to it a few times and visiting the museum once -- I went up to the top of The Arch.

It's not that I was afraid to go -- just never really had a real good chance, except for the time I went to the museum, and nobody else wanted to go up. I didn't want to go up myself and have people waiting for me.

We went to visit Honey & Ray, Sam's mom and stepfather in Breese Illinios friday night. Just hung out. Went to dinner, watched the end of Iwo Jima and the beginning of Sgt. York. Memorial Day weekend, you know. They went on down to Evansville Saturday, and we came back home, but on the way I decided that the Arch would be on the agenda. We spent a little time at the top. It was relatively crowded, and the windows aren't that good. Got a good feel for it, though. Oddly, the city side was more interesting that the less populated Illinois side & River. I thought it would be prettier -- trees, water. Turns out big casinos and parking lots aren't really that attractive. I did get a nice shot of the new Bush Stadium and one of the water in the big muddy.

Did you know vinca blooms? I didn't. But ours is. Not that it should be surprising, but it's known as a greenery plant, not a flowering one. Not that the flowers aren't pretty... but ... there's only one on the whole plant, and I'm not lookin' for another. Still, here it is, just for proof.

We went on the float trip last week. Didn't seem like it went long enough. But Brian and Kristin came down with us, and we set up our little mini tent city and did just a Bay to Alley float on the Jacks Fork river. With an hour of fooling around, it still only took us about 4.5 hours to do the float. The river was up slightly and a bit faster than normal. There were a couple of unfortunate spills -- and unfortunately Kristin caught the worst of both of them. But she's pretty good natured, and she wasn't hurt.

It rained Sunday morning for a few hours and we had to break down in the rain, first time I'd ever had to do that. So we had to set the tents back up when we got home to dry out. Ours leaked a little (first time this tent had been rained on) -- I never seam sealed the rain fly. Apparently it needed it. I'd done the rest of the tent before. It didn't leak much, maybe a whole cup of water in 3 or 4 hours.

We did well on the float. Vicki let me do most of the steering and apparently I do know what I'm doing on the river ;-)

Got the water heater part and replaced it yesterday. So no more leaking. Also helped Ryan put up more siding. Next weekend we have to finish because he's renting a man lift for 1 weekend and we'll need it to finish the high parts on both sides.

Today I got the house vaccuumed and cleaned some spots in the carpet. And tomorrow, need to set up the automatic irrigation system for the deck plants and garden.

Well, I'll leave you with this river pic.