At about ten AM we lost our power. The outage was a bit mysterious at first because there were no storms and it was not particularly warm, so the grid wasn’t burdened with a heavy load.  I decided to run errands and while driving I saw that the power company was working on the poles in the neighborhood.  Returning home, Anne was talking with one of the neighbors who explained that the power company had chosen this day to hookup all the new power poles that it had been installing all summer.

I decided to go for a bike ride, so I got ready in the dark basement and then launched into brilliant sunshine.  I rode to where the power company was working and noticed a bare steel wire lying on the ground, across the street.  There was a lineman standing there, just directing traffic, I looked at him and he looked at me, but he didn’t say anything so I figured it was alright and rode across the wire.  A few seconds later a second lineman comes up to the first and asks, “Is this wire hot?”  Hot or not, by this time I was out of earshot of the reply.  I rode on to the Park. 

The Forest Park Balloon Festival is the biggest event in the Park all year long.  Even though it was not yet noon and the main event, the mass balloon launch, wasn’t scheduled until five, the Park was already getting crowded.  I toured the festival grounds and photographed today’s header, a guy doing summersaults on a trampoline.  I searched for and eventually found some wildlife, a Great White Egret, some Wood Ducks and a bee on a flower.  The theme for the pictures with this post is things that fly.  I got fifteen miles in the morning.

Anne walked to a meeting for The Red Thread Project, at the Saint Louis Artists Guild, in Oak Knoll Park.  The artist, Lindsay Obermeyer, is assembling a piece of art that has hats strung together, about a yard apart, with a red thread.  Anne brought a knitted cap that she had made and helped put the piece together.  Next weekend, on Sunday the 27^th, between one and three, the artist and the Saint Louis Artist’s Guild will perform the Dance of the Hats.  Afterwards, the hats will be donated to charity and the red thread will move on to another city.

Anne and I rode over to the Park for the festival’s balloon launch.  We arrived just in time.  It had clouded up a bit since the morning and more telling the wind had not slackened.  We positioned ourselves under the balloon’s flight path.  It gave us a great opportunity for balloon photography.  Anne made a really great salsa, that with chips we munched on.  It started to drizzle near the end, but we stayed dry on the way home.  We got eight miles. 

We caught the end of the MSU versus Notre Dame game.  Boo!  The Cards won though and now have a magic number of six four.