Quick Thoughts from My Geeky Brain: Mavis and I Crossed the Mississippi

It took me all of a few minutes to get across via the bridge at Dubuque,  but the Mighty Mississippi is nothing to sneeze at.  Being the history geek that I am I imagined a time when you had to take a boat to get across before engineers like William Sooy Smith (buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois) perfected the steel that would span its banks.  It is the father of waters in North America; the premier geologic watershed as well as major artery of commerce.  Battles have been fought for control of it, most notably by the before-mentioned General Grant in the Siege of Vicksburg campaign of 1863.  It separates the designation of call letters for television and radio stations around the country-east of the Mississippi broadcaster call letters start with a W and west of the river they start with a K.  The Mississippi is the means by which species known as Asian Carp were introduced to places like the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

These are the things I think of as I cross the river.  Mavis snores in the back.