Walk on the levee

I love our neighborhood. It's a collection of older, smaller houses which means either small families or grandparenty types of many different backgrounds make up many of its inhabitants. My favorite part of our neighborhood is how quiet it is ... for the most part. The thing I like the least is that we don't have sidewalks, but that also can be an advantage too. We don't have random strange walkers on our street since they have to walk in the road. But, hands down, the best part about our house's location is that we live near the Mississippi River. Believe it or not, since we're so close to the earthen levee that surrounds it, we technically live in a non-flood zone and don't have to maintain flood insurance. I went for a walk this morning up to the levee. I found a mowed down path up to the top, which will make it easier to take the boys up there. When the grass is high, it reaches their waists sometimes and carrying (now) 3 boys to the top can be too much for this mama to handle.

The reason for my walk this morning was because the River is higher than it has been since we lived here. I've seen fishermen sitting on top of the levee with their poles and couldn't imagine it as high as it is. If you've been to "our" section of the levee, you might be surprised too. Rob, you could definitely fish here. :) In fact, while I was up there, I saw several fish jumping out of the water. For those of you who haven't been here, the water usually reaches the treeline you can see in the foreground in the pictures below. I love the boats. I love the peacefulness. And, this morning, I loved the new sound of the water splashing up against the side of the concrete levee.