The Arch

Woke up before sunrise and decided to be adventurous in a new place.   I ended up running a couple of miles in Eagan Minnesota, in and around a residential area and Kettle Lake park in the wee hours of the morning.  At  mile 1 it started to drizzle, and this is when the sun peaked thru revealing a mostly cloudy sky.  The cool raindrops and smell of the dew was actually kind of nice.

Showered and rushed thru breakfast to catch the morning shuttle to the ThomsonReuters facility in Eagan.  A huge complex with about 6000 employees with plenty of others like me starting at 0800.  The remainder of the training and meetings went well, and at 3:20, it was time to take the shuttle to the airport.

One city down, one to go.

This day in history "A single tornado travels 150 miles through Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving 143 dead in its wake. In total, 311 people lost their lives to twisters during the deadly month of April 1908 in the southeastern United States. Another 1,600 were seriously injured.

Two of the locations worst hit by the single extraordinary tornado on this day were Amite, Louisiana, and Purvis, Mississippi. In Amite, the tornado was 2.5 miles wide as it touched the ground, killing 29 residents. In Purvis, 55 people were killed and 400 were injured.
Tornadoes on average travel four to eight miles along the ground at about 60 miles per hour. This one traveled more than 150 miles. Though large, it is not nearly the most impressive on record—a 200-mile-long tornado was recorded on one occasion.
In the United States, it is rare that a single tornado kills more than 50 people, although a series or grouping of related tornadoes sometimes causes such damage. The death rate from tornadoes has plunged since this 1908 disaster. Until the World War II era, public warnings were very rare. During the war, spotters were used to protect ammunition plants and, when the war ended, this system was adapted for use as a civilian-warning system."

My flight from Minneapolis to Str Louis is uneventful until we reach the gate.  For some reason, it take 15 minsutes for them to connect the jetway to the plane...something they do hundreds of times a day...duh.  One out of the plane, I am following an unfamiliar path to baggage claim and ground transportation.

Since I already have my bag, I am really just trying to fined daylight and a familiar looking passenger pickup and dropoff area.  Am I in the twilight zone ?  I have flown into this airport more than a handful of times, and I am completely disoriented.  Tom, a guy on my team is trying to pick me up a the airport and cant find me.

I finally ask a TSA agent why I cant get up to the top level, or the usual area of the airport that I am used to seeing.  He says they closed that section of the terminal to repair it.  Last year a tornado damaged the airport, and this is day 2 of their repair.

Tom finds me and we are off to downtown St Louis to eat dinner and see the arch.  Tom is from Wisconsin and has never been to St Louis before.  Dinner at a small brew house, and a walk to the arch so that he can see how huge it is.  Back in the car and I get checked into the hotel at 10pm.

I am tired.  Just about to finish the blog and the phone rings...it is India calling with a problem with one of our news systems.  Gotta go.

Photo of the day "The ARCH"