Travelin' Geezers (TM): It Finally Stopped Raining, but OOOOOHH the Water!

We finally awoke to dry-ish air. There was no rain, snow, or sleet falling. The clouds were still there, looking like they could burst at any time, though they didn't burst on us. This is where we hit the devastation that was the Midwestern floods. Realizing that the waters have subsided significantly should make these pictures even more horrifying. By reports, the interstate we were driving on was under up to 15 feet of water at one point.

Many sections of the interstate were washed away or damaged so badly they were plugging entire sections of the road instead of focusing on potholes.

Keep in mind that in many places, the interstate is laid on a raised berm of land. If you look at the background, you can see the top of the fence line for the field beside the road. And yes, there are whitecaps on that water. This is a field, not a lake.

At many places south of Council Bluffs, the roads were still closed, and whole cities were still cut off from the outside world. Those who didn't evacuate and didn't have a boat were stuck, and if you wanted to go to those towns, you were simply out of luck. Some emergency and clean-up vehicles were finally able to pass, though.

This was a far too frequent sight, making me wonder what impact this is going to have on food and grain prices. Will this loss of grain in the silos drive prices up or will this shortage be absorbed by the glut, with insurance covering these losses instead of (or in addition to) subsidies on the grain that can't be sold?

Homes and farm buildings were or had been underwater, with some even leaving vehicles behind.

Through this part of the interstate, the Missouri River was at least two miles away at its closest point. I only took pictures on the right side of the interstate, but the left side, where I would have to take the pix through Bruce, was just as bad, and in some places worse. There have been a few deaths reported so far, but I'd be willing to bet there will be more by the time people can get back into some of these towns.

Once we got past the easily visible flood zones, the mood lightened, and we had a "hankering" for reading, so we headed to Kansas City to the Bookshelf. Apparently, they had an event going on, and we couldn't find parking. Once we figured out the blocks to circle without getting stuck behind one-way or closed streets, Bruce kicked me out of the car and told me if I wasn't ready by the time he got back around, he would pick me up at the airport in Memphis. I learned for certain that he was bluffing when he drove past me while I was about midway down the shelf, browsing. It only took a couple of more passes before I was ready to be picked up. I wasn't sure he'd stop, but he did.

The titles were all so good, I wasn't able to choose. But, Bruce eventually let me back in the car. He even sat a little longer at the stop light for me to get a shot of the Muse of the Missouri, a statue just down the hill from the library and to the left.

I had a few more things I wanted to check out in Kansas City, but we'll be coming back, and traffic was a witch, so I plugged the next destination into the GPS, and off we headed to Columbia, MO. Down a little dirt road

to a little advertised installation called Boathenge. Unlike the Cadillac Ranch or the Slug Bug Ranch on Route 66 in Texas, these boats were sunk in a semicircle. They say the dimensions for the arc and the distance between the boats is the same as part of Stonehenge. I didn't measure anything. I'll just take their word for it, though I don't know who "they" are.

You could see how high the Missouri River had gotten. This storm debris was just a couple of feet lower than the bottom of the bridge.

The current was strong, too. This boat was cruising down, but he was just coasting with his engine off.

You know me and water, so we spent considerable time watching the water before heading east again. We decided we'd stop for the night in St. Louis. Either we'd close out the day driving or sightseeing.

After not following proper directions from the GPS, we got lost, finding ourselves on the Illinois side, and every way the GPS in the car wanted us to take, the road was closed. Finally, I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and got us back over to Missouri, but not before a local cop drove behind us for a while and appeared to run our tags. Good thing we didn't forget to take care of those!

But, we did finally make it to the Gateway Arch National Park, just after they closed the arch entry area. So we hung around in the park and took some selfies with it.