Welcome To The Wasteland

What is this vast field of frozen rubble you see here? You may be surprised by the answer. You may also be surprised that the temperature was 71° Fahrenheit that day. This was this last Saturday. The spring warm up has started, but not quite completely. We'll still have some slightly cooler days left.

But I still haven't answered the question yet, have I? The other two pictures won't help, so don't look at them yet. You'll have to read my story to find out the answer, and I really am going to get to it. Really. So read on.

I was expecting this warm day for awhile, so I had big plans for it. Then when the day finally came I woke up kind of late. I also ended up with lots to do at home. When I finally got out it was already mid-afternoon. That's not really a very good start, is it?

So when I finally got to my favorite nature park it was only half an hour till closing time. That place closes really early for some odd reason. I knew I wasn't going to have time for anything, so I just took a quick look around to see how much snow was left. Not much. I didn't bother with any pictures because there just wasn't enough time. I'll be back soon enough though.

As I was leaving I had the idea to go to downtown Sioux City and take a look at the Missouri River. I could get some good pictures there, and the day wouldn't be wasted after all. It's when I got down there that it all went wrong. I will tell you now that I was kind of shocked by what I found.

You may have already guessed. Maybe not. There is a parking lot down there from where you can sit and look out at the river. You can also walk down to the edge of the river. Nope. None of that. The frozen wasteland you see in my pictures is that very parking lot. The last two pictures show the wall of snow and ice that is blocking the view of the river.

They must have plowed all of the snow in the city down to this very spot. If you look to the top left of the first picture you can see a little bit of the river there in the distance. That's all I saw too. Everything else was these pictures. Welcome to the wasteland.

Most people like to blog about the beautiful things they find in their travels. I do some of that, but mostly what I have always done is try to show reality, good and bad. This may be considered bad, but it's really very interesting, at least to me. And I had a good time with the adventure, and with the story. That's what's important.

But wait, there's more! Not really in this post. But this wasn't all I saw that day. I visited more stuff that I think was a little more productive. I'll show that to you in my next post, which will come halfway soon. I think it'll be kind of interesting in a historical sense. You'll see. I'll talk to you later.