All right, I'm really irked now. I took quite a few pictures this morning which have somehow disappeared from the camera. The purchase of a new memory chip for this device is long overdue, so I guess I have myself to blame. As a result, I have only two shots to share today. I decided to venture off the island and hike over to the Central Avenue bridge, so as to take some shots of the island from that vantage point. Which I did. And which have now vanished from the camera. Aaarrgghhh!!
Before leaving the island, I had taken a shot of the Pillsbury Flour sign on top of the old Pillsbury Mill, which is in the St. Anthony Main area and right across the street from where I used to work, when Pillsbury maintained a data center there. It was a nice picture of the sign--before it mysteriously vanished!
Anyway, I hiked over to the movie theater on St. Anthony Main, and adjacent to the theater climbed the steep stone spiral staircase (how's that for alliterating!) to the east side of the bridge, then headed out to the midpoint where I snapped some pics of the island's southern tip--now all gone. I then decided it might be nice to get some shots looking south, from the OTHER side of the bridge, on the other side of the traffic that was schussing back and forth across it, so I trudged back to the eastern side of the bridge and crossed over, then went back to the midpoint. Here is the picture I took, in poor visibility, with the snow flying about my head, of the river's southbound journey.
If you click on the picture to enlarge it, and look very closely, you may be able to discern not only the historic Stone Arch Bridge in the foreground but also the 35W bridge farther downriver. The 35W bridge is the one that made national headlines by collapsing on August 1, 2007, and has since been rebuilt. The bridge collapsed during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was (and I assume still is) Minnesota's fifth busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. I used to drive over it myself all the time prior to the collapse, and still do nowadays.
Here is the second picture I took, of the river currents being churned southward. St. Anthony Falls, just north of the churning cascades in this photo, was the only natural major waterfall on the Upper Mississippi River. The natural falls was replaced by a concrete overflow spillway (also called an "apron") after it partially collapsed in 1869. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, a series of locks and dams were constructed to extend navigation to points upstream.
Seen from another angle, the concrete apron over St. Anthony Falls is engineered to produce the pronounced hydraulic jump evident in this photo (which I pulled from the Web).
All in all, it's a pretty awesome spectacle, and a juncture of the Mississippi with a rich and interesting history. I headed back to St. Anthony Main, noticing as I did the architectural obscenity, a condo apartment building, which replaced the old Pillsbury Data Center (where I once worked). I noticed the top floor which looked as if it might be an observation deck providing some breathtaking views, so I made a mental note to one day attempt to reach that vantage point. When I descended the staircase back to St. Anthony Main, I realized the condo was just a half block away, so figured why not go check it out now as part of my morning adventure?
The front door inside the condo's foyer was locked and I saw only a well-dressed older gentleman (actually, I now question whether he was a gentleman) standing in the lobby, as though waiting for someone. He wore a black beret, so I figured he was either an artist or a revolutionary. I saw a receptionist sitting behind a counter in the distance. I gestured that I was interested in coming in, to which she responded with a series of hand gestures and oral pantomimes that prompted me to fiddle with the electronic call box in the foyer. She never did answer me on the intercom, but did buzz me in. I told her I was interested in obtaining more information about the condos and the cost of them. She was quick to inform me that they were for purchase and NOT for rent (guess I appeared the renting type), and pointed to some cards on the counter that had a phone number I could call. By this time, I had scuttled the idea of somehow finding my way to the observation deck, and this scuttling was further sealed as I read on the card that the cost of a condo apartment was between $350K and $4M. I guess gaining access to the foyer alone had been a significant triumph of infiltration.
I skulked past Mr. Beret with my tail tucked firmly between my legs, and returned to the cobblestone streets outside where the commoners fought over scraps and eked out a living. It's funny to think that I had worked right where that receptionist (misnomer!) was sitting, before the building had been built. But it's a funny old life, isn't it? I was soon back home on Nicollet Island, with all the beautiful scenery I could ever desire.
Life flows on, in and around us--sometimes taking away that which we have had, other times holding up before us that which we will never have--the moral: remain content with what we do have and manage to keep.
D.E.S.
Before leaving the island, I had taken a shot of the Pillsbury Flour sign on top of the old Pillsbury Mill, which is in the St. Anthony Main area and right across the street from where I used to work, when Pillsbury maintained a data center there. It was a nice picture of the sign--before it mysteriously vanished!
Anyway, I hiked over to the movie theater on St. Anthony Main, and adjacent to the theater climbed the steep stone spiral staircase (how's that for alliterating!) to the east side of the bridge, then headed out to the midpoint where I snapped some pics of the island's southern tip--now all gone. I then decided it might be nice to get some shots looking south, from the OTHER side of the bridge, on the other side of the traffic that was schussing back and forth across it, so I trudged back to the eastern side of the bridge and crossed over, then went back to the midpoint. Here is the picture I took, in poor visibility, with the snow flying about my head, of the river's southbound journey.
If you click on the picture to enlarge it, and look very closely, you may be able to discern not only the historic Stone Arch Bridge in the foreground but also the 35W bridge farther downriver. The 35W bridge is the one that made national headlines by collapsing on August 1, 2007, and has since been rebuilt. The bridge collapsed during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was (and I assume still is) Minnesota's fifth busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. I used to drive over it myself all the time prior to the collapse, and still do nowadays.
Here is the second picture I took, of the river currents being churned southward. St. Anthony Falls, just north of the churning cascades in this photo, was the only natural major waterfall on the Upper Mississippi River. The natural falls was replaced by a concrete overflow spillway (also called an "apron") after it partially collapsed in 1869. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, a series of locks and dams were constructed to extend navigation to points upstream.
Seen from another angle, the concrete apron over St. Anthony Falls is engineered to produce the pronounced hydraulic jump evident in this photo (which I pulled from the Web).All in all, it's a pretty awesome spectacle, and a juncture of the Mississippi with a rich and interesting history. I headed back to St. Anthony Main, noticing as I did the architectural obscenity, a condo apartment building, which replaced the old Pillsbury Data Center (where I once worked). I noticed the top floor which looked as if it might be an observation deck providing some breathtaking views, so I made a mental note to one day attempt to reach that vantage point. When I descended the staircase back to St. Anthony Main, I realized the condo was just a half block away, so figured why not go check it out now as part of my morning adventure?
The front door inside the condo's foyer was locked and I saw only a well-dressed older gentleman (actually, I now question whether he was a gentleman) standing in the lobby, as though waiting for someone. He wore a black beret, so I figured he was either an artist or a revolutionary. I saw a receptionist sitting behind a counter in the distance. I gestured that I was interested in coming in, to which she responded with a series of hand gestures and oral pantomimes that prompted me to fiddle with the electronic call box in the foyer. She never did answer me on the intercom, but did buzz me in. I told her I was interested in obtaining more information about the condos and the cost of them. She was quick to inform me that they were for purchase and NOT for rent (guess I appeared the renting type), and pointed to some cards on the counter that had a phone number I could call. By this time, I had scuttled the idea of somehow finding my way to the observation deck, and this scuttling was further sealed as I read on the card that the cost of a condo apartment was between $350K and $4M. I guess gaining access to the foyer alone had been a significant triumph of infiltration.
I skulked past Mr. Beret with my tail tucked firmly between my legs, and returned to the cobblestone streets outside where the commoners fought over scraps and eked out a living. It's funny to think that I had worked right where that receptionist (misnomer!) was sitting, before the building had been built. But it's a funny old life, isn't it? I was soon back home on Nicollet Island, with all the beautiful scenery I could ever desire.
Life flows on, in and around us--sometimes taking away that which we have had, other times holding up before us that which we will never have--the moral: remain content with what we do have and manage to keep.
D.E.S.
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