By the river

 I remember as a lad at Tonti Elementary school hearing about the the river and how it was reversed but it didn't make much of an impression on me at the time because I wasn't sure where the river was or even if it was in Chicago because you know how they go on and on about boring stuff, and anyway I spent a lot of time putting my pencil, eraser down, on the desk and making a slight shushing noise and raising it slowly up, point first, and the whole thing was a spaceship blasting off which was way more interesting than whatever Mrs Porwancher was droning on about.

Well you know, I lived in Chicago, so I pretty much  knew everything about it.  When I went downtown I was careful not to crane my neck up to look at the skyscrapers lest people think I was a tourist.  When I went down to Champaign I was all like what a podunk, though later I was so fond of my beer drinking buddies that I began to think of it as the land of milk and honey.

But when I went to Texas, well Son, that was something altogether different.  Illinois was just where people went when they thought Indiana was too full, but Texas, what a story.  And when I took the bus downtown from South Austin and we crossed the Colorado River everybody set down their newspapers or whatever, because this was before phones, imagine that, and looked down at the sparkling river and its well adorned banks and let out a sigh because it was a pretty little thing.  Well I did.  

Well I have gone far afield as I often do.  Just so happy to be typing with a cup of coffee at my side in the morning.

Anyway now I live right on the banks of the river and I know the river well.  

Those photos are kind of trick shots, making use of where the narrow sunbeams shoot down the streets between the buildings to accent the steam.  But it has been a pretty mild winter up till Sunday so the river is pretty warm and the air is like really, really cold.  

The current is pretty sluggish and we always get some ice on the river.  Every five or ten years it does freeze over entirely from Wolf Point to the mouth but then they bring out a little ice breaker and, like a tractor in the spring, it ploughs a little path in the middle of the river.  If it's a pretty cold day you can see steam rising behind it.  Pretty cool.

Less than half an hour till sunrise which will let me see the river better and I will check for ice.

This is an hour later, plenty of steam but no ice.  Here are a couple photos from about ten years ago.