The wind is up - the air is thick with helicopter seeds, like rain against the window.

Hail. Very noisy, very small hail. Peppering away at the browning leaves still clinging to the trees. Clumping up on the already wet ground. Melting away.

A hydraulic crane, with hydraulic stabilizing outriggers. The entire street is blocked off. I regret I didn't catch it in time to see what was being lifted, but I got to watch the entire retraction of both the crane & the outriggers. The front post retracting made a sound like a modem handshake.

Lousy Smarch weather

Being inside a cloud is less whimsical than you'd think. It's cold, clingy, and damp, and there's often a surprising amount of wind in there with you. The church bell tolling through this fog is giving very Victorian New England vibes.

At Begyle/Dovetail Oktoberfestiversary watching a local band hammer out All The Small Thmgs to a plethora of locally brewed beer. Peak Chicago.

Neighborhood dogs have got a howl going. This happens every few days.

At Begyle. If you know Chicago, windows at a lot of bars are really just entire walls or lift doors that get opened up to the outside world. Across the way, an ivy covered wall rises to the commuter rail tracks. A late train passes, much quieter than the el a block over. One or two lonely riders.

A small town street festival! Looks almost exactly like a big city street festival, just with a lot more places to sit down.

A lot of kudzu. Not so much wudzu or shudzu.

The sun rises on a new day, just enough for me too see how ridiculously high this train bridge over the Mississippi River is again on the return trip.

The mighty Mississippi River, from the terrifyingly high rail bridge at St. Louis. No joke, like 100 feet up. On the western bank, the ground rises to meet us, and not the other way around.

A country cemetery. Headstones are uniformly modest in size, but vary substantially in shape. Very few trees, but large, old growth when they are. Flat, like so much of downstate. Several acres, but every vantage point can see it all.

A pillar of smoke on the horizon.

Stopping in Normal, apparently between housing and the campus, based on the mass of young folks waiting for the crossing. At least one person finds enough novelty in our passage to film it with a phone.

A grain elevator directly against the tracks. A thrill at the memory of going with my grandfather at a very young age, getting my first taste of industry at scale.

Flitting through a small town. Chain link yards. A car made from many cars. A Caterpillar loader behind a corrugated tin shed. The McDonald’s. A low building with a tattoo parlor and fitness center. Silent, like a snapshot.

Traveling by train to St Louis for a software conference. Cruising comfortably through vast swathes of the three primary crops of Illinois - corn, soybeans, and histamine.