John's Blog

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Jul 8 (Mon) - I don’t remember anything happening that’s worth mentioning here. So there’s that. I checked the weather forecast and decided to trike to coffee in the AM.
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Jul 10 (Sat)I was rolling to coffee by my planned departure time much to Willow’s disappointment. I headed straight downhill toward the minor flooding. I stayed three blocks uphill from the riverfront as I headed east. I was sharing downtown with a lot of traffic due to the time of day and everyone detouring above the river.
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When I got to the east side of downtown (Bucktown! Center for the Arts!) I whipped around a city pickup truck with its light bar and hazards flashing to see if I could get onto the Government Bridge. I did so. Eff the ‘DETOUR’ and ‘NO CARS BEYOND THIS POINT’ signs.
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I hauled across the bridge which was closed to traffic and into Rock Island (RI) Illinois. Getting up onto the multi-use paved trail on top of the levees was no problem. I turned east and soon rolled into a few challenges. The first one was that RI had parked a large orange (thankfully silent in the still morning air) tow-behind pump on a trailer connected to two big hoses, one draped down each side of the levee. I had to pick up the trike to get around that and back onto the trail.
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About a hundred yards later I discovered that the trail, which goes downhill to river level to get under a railroad bridge, was well under water. Great. I looked around and decided that the best direction for me to go in order to continue eastbound to the coffee shop would be along the edge of the RI rail yard. From there I would be able to pick up River Drive and scoot to coffee.
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It didn’t work out like that. The distance from the levee wall to River Drive, along the rail yard, is about a third of a mile. The rail yard was all ballast rocks (rough cut stone) and glass, and metal tossed or fallen from rail cars. I had to pick up the back of the trike (where the motor and battery are) the entire way. Slow goin’ as I dealt with the hazardous debris.
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I squeezed between Abbey Station and the rail yard and finally to River Drive. There’s no sidewalk on the north side (my side), the frickin’ rail yard goes right up to the curb. There was no way I was gonna keep carrying the trike between the rail yard and River Drive, no way was I gonna ride on River Drive against oncoming traffic at 40 mph or more, no way was I gonna risk playing frogger to cross five busy lanes to get to the side walk on the other side which looks kinda dodgy anyway.
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I ended up riding east (away from coffee) along River Drive, past Abbey Station to the first traffic light off in the distance. Uphill from there to 7th Street and then uneventful to coffee.
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Leaving coffee I crossed back into Iowa via the Interstate Bridge. I then avoided the river trail completely, instead I stayed about eight blocks north of the river and meandered west through neighborhoods, no problems.
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It’ll take several weeks to get the Mississippi back within its banks. Until then I’ll take residential back roads and the Interstate bridge both ways.
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Kim and I spent the rest of the day working in the basement. Kim moved some furniture around until she had a place to do beading. I organized tools and hardware a bit, my heart and mind not really into it.
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Last night I watched the first few minutes of another one of Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ movies. This was the Western. A great cast (back in the day I watched the movie once all the way through) but oh so slow in the beginning. I quickly grew tired of that and tried the original 38 Steps. That wasn’t working either. I doubt I’ll finish watching that one.
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I ended up watching the first part of Bourne Legacy. A re-visit but it was a long time ago and stuff was no longer clear to me. I’ll finish that one later.
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The weather has turned hot. Beryl leftovers are well east of us, moving North up the Ohio River valley. We may get a little of that later today or tonight. That low pressure will finally hook east over the Great Lakes and douse New England later this week.
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That weather summary was brought to you by the fine folks at General Foods, who back in 1950 or so introduced Sugar Crisp. Cereal! Candy! Sugar! With that product there’s no difference between the three. This Wikipedia article nicely summarizes the super-sweetened product and its rivals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Crisp. Geez, what a product and still for sale. Cheers.