March Madness Snow

My husband thinks I have been slacking because this blog hasn't seen much action.  First, I have been pretty busy with the church blog http://discoverstmark.blogspot.com/ .  Although I haven't written all of this during Lent I have typed and edited all of it. And then there was this blog http://longmorgan.blogspot.com/ which I have also been working on.

"Plus," I said, "not much has happened."  I should have bitten my words.  Saturday, we went to church---temperature in the 50's, but we did not believe the forecast of 3-8" of snow for Palm Sunday.  We were right and wrong.  It was officially 12.5" unofficially about 10" at our house.  And, we didn't even get the "thunder snow" some areas got.  Mind you, it started snowing while in the 40's and barely got below freezing so this is a h-e-a-v-y snow great for building snowmen, forts!  The picture of my front door decorations and daffodils (before I rescued them) were from Sunday.  The rest of these photos are from Monday after about 12 hours of snow.

 My strategy of putting the van in the driveway to keep one part of the driveway clear was working until I noticed the pine tree was drooped so far over from the weight that it was resting on the van---even in the middle of the driveway.  Here is the tree below on Monday.

But, it did make a great tent that I would have loved playing under as a kid. (I often made "houses" under mature hydrangea  and spirea shrubs when we lived in the city)

Still Looking for Eagles

 We might have seen a few eagles fly over while we were driving along the river road, but we were hungry and decided to stop for lunch in Grafton with no confirmed sightings.

 Ruebel's had a delicious menu and wonderful atmosphere with their 1904 World's Fair bar. Dave and I had eaten at the Pere Marquette Lodge when we had gone several years ago (Click here), but this was a nice alternative.   Refreshed, we were ready to head home---not the same way we had gone. . .

 On the Brussel's Free Ferry---crossing the Illinois River to a peninsula area of beautiful farmland and rolling hills.

 Then, we had to take the Golden Eagle Ferry across the Mississippi River. . .not free.

 But, just as we got off that ferry and the sun was starting to set, Brett says, "Look at that dot in the tree---it's an eagle."  As chance would have it, there was a gravel area for us to pull off the road and get a closer look

Although, Rachel's was not as blurry as mine, I think you can still see the white head on the eagle! 

Looking for Eagles

 Rachel's family came to St. Louis to see the bald eagles.  Although we had seen plenty of eagles in the past, this year had been too warm. We had heard there weren't nearly as many.  Click here for the blog on eagle watching 3 years ago.

First, we went to the Melvin Price Lock and Dam outside of Alton, IL.  They have a wonderful museum there and there are always birds flying around the churning waters.  The only birds we saw were gulls, but we did get to see a tug boat coming through the locks.

 But, there is also a wonderful museum there explaining the lock system, the efficiency of barges, the wildlife of the Misssissippi River.  The kids loved it---they made eagle hats, colored pictures, tried a game which had them piloting a barge and we watched a movie about eagles.  We drove a little further to Hartford, IL so the kids could see the confluence of the rivers from an observation tower.

 They are on the top floor (there is an elevator but they walked)--see the red in the photo below.

 Rachel and I had chosen to stay below---we thought we saw an eagle. . .

 That it didn't have a white head, didn't bother us (immature bald eagles have brown heads), but when we saw it from an angle, we realized a white chest was definitely not a bald eagle. . .