respublica

A new tally!

Even with somewhat less traffic as people are working at home more often, these things are still falling onto St. Louis area highways.

Mattresses 50

Ladders 60

On another travel note in the STL, news this morning. The King bridge was closed for many months for repairs or some such. It recently re-opened and today we learn that today and tomorrow the westbound lane will close from 9-3 and Wednesday and Thursday the eastbound lanes will close from 8-3. For inspections! I mean, seriously? They just spent a long time re-doing that bridge, why weren't inspections done before they opened just a short time ago?

Catching up on the road falls

Mattresses 45

Ladders 55

Ladders are really pulling away right now, must be because of all the construction work going on.

Oops, late tally update

Mattresses 42

Ladders 44

I got busy and forgot to keep up with these things falling on St. Louis highways

Best food categories for the year

Feast Magazine, a free newsprint type of monthly and is found for free at entrances to grocery stores and restaurants, has come out with its annual "Best Of" issue. These bests run the gamut of anything food in the St. Louis region. I came across a link to this today and scrolled through all the categories as well as the comments under the story on Facebook. Now that I want to link it myself, it has disappeared. As a general rule, Feast doesn't link its current issue online until most of the hard copies have been taken or it's almost time for the new month.

So I guess someone took it down. I tried every local news outlet I could think of to find this story but it's gone. I wanted to zero in on Feast's Best Bar b Que because it got quite the reaction from those who commented. Bandana's was chosen as number one. With all the great bar b que's in St. Louis and Illinois it shocked many readers that a food magazine put them at number one. We happen to like Bandanas and do a carry out from there quite often and are never unhappy we did.

But smoked meat fans were pretty outraged. Sugar Fire, I believe was either second or third. If I get up the nerve to go to the store, I'll get the actual Feast Magazine to be sure.

We're out!

The other day while I had to get out to the store I decided to just drive around the local area to see what others were doing. I was pretty amazed at how many cars were back on the roads. Getting over to the Brentwood Promenade there were as many cars heading in similar directions as I was. Clayton Road, Big Bend, Hanley, Brentwood, all filled with cars. It was like the days before the virus shutdown.

I was thankful I'd gone to the grocery store at 6 that morning. So people are now leaving home, going places (shopping as always). Actually, heading back to the seminary on Sunday afternoon from Collinsville Interstate 55/70 and Highway 64/40 had heavy traffic. Someone must have dropped the checker flag for getting out and going places.

But, here also comes the mattresses and ladders onto local highways. The tally has jumped since the last report.

Mattresses 42

Ladders 43

Mattresses turn to fall this morning

Ladders 38

Mattresses 37

Tally catch up

I've missed a couple from last week

Mattresses 36

Ladders 37

Falling ladders making a comeback

Mattresses 34

Ladders 35

A ladder report

Mattresses 34

Ladders 33

An award you probably didn't know existed

It seems there was a bracket challenge recently pitting city flags from all over the country. 64 city flags made the tournament and little by little flags were eliminated by public online voting. The idea was for the winning flag be named, Coolest U.S. City Flag.

St. Louis' flag won!

Here is the beginning bracket, you can click it to enlarge for better viewing.

The finals came down to the flags of St. Louis and Tulsa.

St. Louis' flag symbolizes the confluence of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Meramec Rivers. The Fleur-de-lis in the middle is there to give homage to the city’s French heritage.

On the Tulsa flag the blue represents the Arkansaw River which runs through the city. The gold represents black gold (oil). The shield represents Native Americans who were forcibly relocated to the area. The red circle represents the blood of those killed in the Tulsa race riots, the star is the future of the city and the cream bottom represents the warm of its citizens.

I don't know if Collinsville has an official city flag, but if they did it would probably look something like this: