Flooding

We drove to downtown St. Paul today to take the car for an open air ride, see the flooding at the Mississippi, have stomach-churning amounts of ice cream at the new Nelson's in St. Paul on Snelling (we shared two child sizes between the three of us and still couldn't finish), and do a bit of antiquing at the nearby stores on Snelling.

The Mississippi was wild, particularly as we were at the Showboat only 8 days ago.  At that time, you could walk out to the steamboat.  Today there was at least a block of water between the shore and the boat and the ticket office was deep in water.  You can see where the walkway down to the shoreline is in this photo - those flags mark the top of the stairs.


The Mississippi was actually down a little from where it must have crested.  Hopefully it will go down a bit more before all the water from later today kicks in. It looked like someone was dumping a bucket of water on the neighborhood.


There's the Showboat and the tickethouse.  Understandable why the U of MN is putting Jekyll and Hyde off for a while.


The playground.  We could see the St. Paul Yacht Club on the way to the park and it was way out into the water.  That's not unusual as it tends to go under with even a little bit of flooding, but it seemed excessive even for their location.  I usually ride down into St. Paul along the cliffs which come out at the Club.  There must be a mile or more of water along the trail which would stop passage even if the trail wasn't closed because the cliffs were loose.


This is the picture they're showing on the news. Now it's on my blog too.  They have receptions there.  I hear they moved a lot of weddings and receptions to lower town St. Paul to sooth the tears of upset brides to be.


It's the apocalypse.  Wildlife reclaiming what was previously a human area.  I'm surprised lions didn't start chasing us like something out of Will Smith in I Am Legend.  Swimming lions.


Not our footprints.  Going in the water is a no-no.  These are the footprints of two people who were yelled at by the mounted police.  Eryn was excited to see the police on horses.  She had no sympathy for the barefoot waders.  We left after talking to Kuz's cousin for a while, who was undoubtedly taking much better pictures with his 7200 than I was with my iPhone, to go find ice cream and an antique cat key hanger.  We pulled into the garage just as the rain came down.  Good timing to a good afternoon outing.