The Severed Cortex

A couple months ago I went ape-crap over the Belle of the Night about to break loose from its moorings. Turns out it didn't. Well, sort of. The truth is that it did break one of its lines, but they were able to secure it again. And so, the yellow beast sat there as the water receded. The Mississippi has dropped more than 20 feet since that time and appears to be roughly about at its normal summer pool. While it's true that the old tub was leaning a little from day to day, my fears of it receding on top of that big drift pile and poking a hole in the hull turned out to be unfounded.

Or did it? As I drove to work today, it was gone. The walkway that was half submerged appears to be gone too. There is a tremendous drift pile still sitting there though. So now the question becomes, where did they move it? It's hard to say, but my guess is that it still has to be somewhere in the same pool. According to the C of E, and it's certainly not an exact science with that bunch, it doesn't appear that it has locked through 25, 27, Melvin Price, or even LaGrange. That basically means it was either locked through and counted as a barge, still in the same pool, or abducted by a UFO. That pool, as we all know, covers the entire Missouri River so it could be anywhere from here to Sioux City. Well, maybe you didn't know that. I guess that is kind of an obscure thing to know. You'd know if you went here.