Now that you can tell we're excited, I'll get to the story (and, by the way, this post has been taken over by Kevin). On Wednesday, January 2, Highway 40 (I-64) closed from Ballas to I-170. I spent about ten months with several of my cohorts from H&S designing the replacement for the "Segment 1" portion of the landmark-life altering-St. Louis will never be the same New I-64 project. Now the highway will be closed for the next year while all our hard work and, ultimately, our genius is constructed for all of St. Louis to glorify.
On the night of Friday, January 4, demolition began of the I-64 over Lindbergh Blvd. bridge. This bridge (fondly known to project insiders as "Bridge 02") is one of the bridges I (along with my teammate Ryan Kane) designed for the project. Saturday morning, January 5 meant the perfect opportunity to take all three girls to get breakfast at the Schnucks grocery store immediately adjacent to the bridge. After breakfast, we all went out behind the store and watched the work. Most of the bridge superstructure had been removed the night before, but we still got to see several excavators loading dump trucks full of debris. In the photos below, you can see a front end loader (immediately behind the utility pole in the center of the shot). It was dumping load after load of gravel into a trench carrying a new sewer beneath Lindbergh.
Reiley thought it was fun. Ainsley was more interested in the dog the family next to us brought along. Jen... well Jen just couldn't stop talking about how amazing it was. All the way home. Later that day. Sunday. Monday. Seriously, she was so excited to be so close to all that work going on. Maybe that's how any adult feels and the kids just can't appreciate it the same way.
Now you can enjoy it, too. It wasn't a "boom boom boom" kind of demolition with explosives like Reiley likes to see on YouTube. In your brain, think of the sounds accompanying the photos as more like, "crunch, rumble-rumble-rumble."
