As we draw close to next week’s winter solstice, our sun offers us some unique viewpoints.  Today’s header has a sailor’s warning of a red sunrise.  This photo was shot looking east towards our back property line on Monday morning.  The picture with today’s post was taken on Sunday afternoon.  The setting sun was dimmed by a thin layer of clouds.  You could look at the orb without blinking.  Do you think that it might even fool a vampire?  A similar shot was featured in Edward Crim’s Forest Park 365 blog on Monday.

On Monday, we had another airline ticket snafu.  Dave’s flight home from Rochester was scheduled for Saturday evening at six.  On Monday I sent Dave a reminder email featuring his itinerary.  He shot back, “Um Dad, I’ve got a three o’clock final Saturday afternoon.”  First, I’m pretty sure Dave told me that he would be done with his finals on Friday.  Second, what kind of professor schedules a final for three o’clock Saturday afternoon?  Anne wondered if Dave needed to start doing his own airline bookings?  I called Travelocity and after some hemming and hawing decided that it would be better to cancel the original ticket and buy a new one.  It would have been cheaper to have Dave take a six AM flight on Sunday morning, but balancing the risk (Dave sleeping through another early morning departure time.) versus my desires for punitive actions, I elected to eat the extra $23.  All told re-booking a new flight (through DTW I might add) cost $128.  Doesn’t anyone want to come to Saint Louis?

I’ve observed for the last week that traffic on The New I-64 is pretty much the same as the old Highway Farty.  Traffic backs up in the same places that it always did.  In Monday’s  Post-Dispatch there was a front page article articulating the very same gripes that I have already commented on.  In fact, even as I am writing this post on Monday evening, the radio has announced another traffic backup, west-bound on Highway Farty.  MODOT says that improved safety was the focus of The New I-64.  Although safety was the focus, it was a focus with cost in mind.  Apparently, after just one week Saint Louis is suffering from buyer’s remorse over the $524 million cost of the project.  I must say though that Monday night like every work night, I dove head first into the maelstrom.  I drove to the storm’s nexus, the I-170 and I-64 interchange and I passed through unscathed and better yet unimpeded.