We’ve managed to climb our way out of the deep freeze. Today it is supposed to hit sixty and the snow is all but gone. On Sunday, we drove north to Winfield, MO, a small town on the Mississippi, about an hour-plus away. Our plan was to go birding there, but the Corps has made the lock and dam there as inhospitable to visitors as they possibly could. The lock is sealed off from the public and the only accessible viewing platform is a good quarter mile from the parking lot. This wouldn’t be bad except there is no easy path to the platform. We had to walk along the fence line, through mud and snow to get to it. The view was hardly worth the effort either. To make matters worse, on the way back, not ten feet from pavement, I slipped, fell and got mud all over my jeans. Yesterday, we walked in Forest Park, where the sidewalks were mostly clear of snow.

The photo is from the Virgin Islands. Previously, I had made two posts about our vacation there, this time last year. In it I referred to the island that we visited as St. Johns and not St. John. This mistake has been repeatedly pointed out to me by some anonymous prick, who is now one comment away from being banned.