As we pulled into the art museum’s parking lot, Anne spied a Peregrine falcon perched on one of the light poles. We parked, tried to get a picture, but it was already in the air. It overflew us. We took this sighting as an omen. Dan and Britt are planning on using the Peregrine as the logo for their drone company. At the time, we were uncertain if this was a good or bad omen. Let me cut to the chase. On our first outing with the new drone we didn’t crash. I count that as a success.

We spent the afternoon walking around Forest Park, flying the drone and taking pictures. There weren’t very many people in the park. It was cold and overcast with occasional drizzle. Coming down off of Art Hill, we were attracted by all of the police activity around Picnic Island. We had walked this way on Saturday, but since then the news had reported that the authorities would be searching all week for some unnamed something in the waters around Picnic Island. A tent city had sprouted, peopled by dozens of law officers. I wanted to walk across Picnic Island like we did before. There were two barricades on the bridge to the island, but they were off to the side and I remembered that they had been there on Saturday. Anne asked about the yellow police line tape that now draped them. While we discussed this, we were approached by a nice FBI man who voted us off the island. He was wearing a blue windbreaker out of central casting, with FBI stenciled in yellow on it. Also on it was the acronym ERT, standing for Evidence Response Team. He was the agent-in-charge, making this his circus.

“Cellphone!” We had to take the long way around Picnic Island. On the way, we passed a group of men wading and diving in one of the back channels. They all had metal detectors and every once in a while, one of them would find another, “Cellphone!” According to a SLFD observer they had already found dozens.

Leaving this hub-bub behind, we continued on to Pagoda Circle, where I got this post’s photo. The drizzle started to intensify and checking radar, it was time to beat feet. We made it back to the car just as the drizzle turned to rain. Moments after getting home, rolling peels of thunder began. They rumbled on so long that at first I was unconvinced that it was really thunder. Today is trash day and I thought the rumbling was a neighbor rolling out their cans, but it was thunder.

Happy Birthday, Jay!