Deflection

It was colder this morning, like below freezing, but the wind was blowing today making it feel colder than yesterday.

There are people enjoying this Journal Entry, since I got three response back from yesterdays entry. It is these comment that make it easy to keep me typing. But, with today’s politics, it make writing something difficult, since I do not want to turn anyone off.

Today, I found the water low north of the Missouri River and no barge traffic. But, south of the Missouri River the water is really low. It seems like in our area in Wisconsin, we have had plenty of rain and the rivers and creeks are fill to the top of the lower banks. But there must be no water coming in from the rivers west of the Mississippi River. Also, looking a at the drought maps, this what the maps are showing. After 4:30, I go to Tower Rock and I found it to be so small that it was not as advertised. Since the rock is on the Missouri side of the river, it look like there in enough water to keep from walking out to the rock, but the water is low at this location. To the north of tower Rock, the rock jetties coming out of the shores are like six feet out of the water and they are normally below the water. The boat ramp across tower rock is out of the water and has not been used for sometime. It makes me wonder what the past time was during the summers, since it becomes obvious that it was not fishing.

I found yesterday and this morning to be bitter sweet. Since I have worked on all of the Mississippi River starting in 1987, I have many memories. Faces of staff that I have worked with and have not seen for years. The comradely that we developed between each other as we walked over the bridge decks or sometimes walking through the steel superstructure. Working with the guys that I would with sounding the stream beds to determine topography of the stream bed that sometimes required a project. The discussion after each inspection with the states of Wisconsin and Illinois staff regarding upcoming projects. My reviews of construction projects. These images as so fresh my mind, although some of these events took place like over twenty years ago.

Before I left, I was still making my inputs into projects. It is hard to go back and find out that my inputs were ignored. As for the for the way that I feel at this time, I am glad that I have left the state of Iowa, since I am not reminded over and over again of things that did not work out as I thought that they would. Since I put so much of myself into my work, it was like I took ownership of the work. But this would happen to others, too. However, on the other hand, there are so many great faces that I am not seeing that I miss. My last walk through the central complex was really hard. With the cut back in staff and the coronavirus, there was no one in the building. And, I remembered so many people that were always around and now retired. It is all so hard. I also had several major accomplishments. With all of the memories on my mind, it is hard to find the balancing of all these memories. Furthermore, as I have found out in the past, time is the great healer on these type of memories, but it is hard to see in persecutive at this time.

Tomorrow, I will proceed down to Cairo, Illinois and see where to Ohio River joins the Mississippi River. This reminds me of an event that Lewis and Clark had on the Ohio River. They had there two keelboats fabricated some where near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Then they moved the keelboats down the Ohio River, but there was a drought and they spent much of their time freeing their keelboats for being grounded in the streamed. Okay, one more story. William Clarks’s older brother General George Rogers Clark was moving troops down the Ohio during the Revolutionary War when they came to the falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, the experienced a full lunar eclipse of the sun. As they started down the falls, the earth turned black. Although they were not sure if they were going to make it to the bottom, they had no idea what an eclipse was at the time. It was kind of scary for them. Just incase anyone on is wondering, Thomas Jefferson’s neighbors, the Clark family, had an impact on this country during the its formation.

Although I am not as tired as I was last evening, I guess that I will start trying to slow my brain down for bed.

Roger