Runoff, Rainbows and Wet Roads

Cape LaCroix Creek 10-13-2014_3208The weather alert radio was busy this afternoon with severe storm warnings, tornado watches and warnings. We did a bunch of running around between showers and drizzles, but beat feet home before the bad stuff got here. The trees bent down for a bit and there were a few times when we couldn’t see across the street, but it moved on quickly.

The storm water system constructed in the mid-80s wasn’t nearly so full as it was when a frog-strangler hit in 2011, but you can see it’s still moving quite a bit of water. The lighter-colored water passing under South Kingshighway is Cape LaCroix Creek; the darker water being held back on the right is what drains down from neighborhoods to the north.

I wonder if the people in that brick office building know that when I was growing up on Bloomfield Road in the ’50s that it was a packing house of some kind. There was a little dam across the creek there and the building discharged something that, when the wind was right/wrong, stunk to high heaven.

Double, maybe triple rainbows

Double rainbow 10-13-2014_3257We drove around town for bit, paused at the riverfront, then headed west on Broadway. In the rearview mirror, I could see a rainbow, but wasn’t sufficiently impressed to stop. I pulled into a parking lot to check out the Mexican restaurant across from Houck Stadium. When I looked up this time, the rainbow was much brighter, so I went to the car for my camera. Much to my surprise, when I got out to the street, it had turned into a double rainbow. The second one isn’t quite as bright, but, trust me, it’s there. For a second, I thought I saw a third rainbow, but I could have been mistaken.

Coming into Jackson

Jackson 10-13-2014We were on our way to Jackson shortly after the rainbows when a thin stretch of the horizon under the dark storm clouds flamed bright orange. I rushed out to North County Park to try to get a high, clear vantage point, but the light was gone by the time I got into position.

The best I could come up with of the end of the storm was a night shot coming down the hill into Jackson.

Click on the photos to make them larger. There has been a software change that I have to tweak. You can still use the arrow keys to move through the photos and press the X or ESC key to exit them. I’ll see if I can get it to look more like what you were used to seeing.

Serpentine Suggestions?

AerialSouthern Parkway - S Kingshighway 11-06-2010_9075I was scrolling through aerial photos from November 11,2010, when an unusual shape caught my eye. It was in just one frame, and I couldn’t place what or where it was. (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

I called up Google Earth and worked my way along I-55 looking for the serpentine-shaped pavement at the lower left. After determining that the four-lane divided highway wasn’t the Interstate, I figured out that north-south road was South Kingshighway and the major road running east and west and intersecting with it is the Southern Parkway.

Running across the bottom of the photo is the Cape Recreational Trail paralleling Cape LaCroix Creek.

I was confused, though, because something as oddly shaped as my target should pop right out. By looking at the other landmarks in the area, I determined that the building was located on the south side of Commercial Street where it deadends at South Kingshighway. The reason I couldn’t find it is that it’s been wiped out.

I shot my photo in 2010. Google Earth showed it there in 2011, but when they make their last pass on April 1, 2012, the land was in the process of being cleared. Google Earth has a cool timeline slider that will let you step back through all their photos. The track hadn’t been built when they flew over it on on March 26, 1993, but it did appear on March 21, 1996.

So, what WAS it, a go kart track?