Glassberg Conservation Area, 400 Acres, Now Open; See It Here

The LaBarque Watershed’s new conservation area is now open to the public: 428 acres with 1.5 miles of easy to moderate hiking trails and good signage, a 3-acre fishing lake called Buder Lake, and Meramec River bluffs from which to view the Pacific Palisades. Formerly residential property, then acquired by the nonprofit Wild Canid Center which never got the funding to build on it, now, thanks to the Glassberg family, it belongs to us all. It opened at noon October 30. I was there. Here is my 7-minute video tour, the first ever, to peek at until you can get here and enjoy it yourself.

Fishing and hiking are encouraged, but camping, biking, and horseback riding are not allowed, dogs must be leashed at all times, and hunting is not yet permitted, but with hunters in the surrounding area you’ll look smart in your hunter orange. Wear hiking boots, bring water. There are no facilities.

The new Glassberg Conservation Area is located in northwestern Jefferson County on Highway FF, and practically across the road from the Young Conservation Area that protects a long section of LaBarque Creek. See you in the Conservation Areas!

All Play and No Work

Coming round a bend from walking in a park in town I saw this dramatic huge air balloon collapsing in the baseball field. Turns out a sudden course change required the captain to land somewhere open and flat, along with 8 passengers he referred to as "1800 pounds of passengers," and I ran over to ogle it like everybody else, especially tons of kids comin' outa nowhere. After the balloon drooped to the ground it still had air in it so the captain recruited the kids to roll on it end to end to press all the air out, and they sure enjoyed that and of course I have video (34 seconds) of kids rolling on it and screamin' with joy on a summer evening in Missouri. And the captain, in the red shirt, said it was much easier than just him doing it.
The travel basket looked very small for 8 people and a third of it was taken up by 4 tanks of propane fuel, 400 lbs each. After the kids deflated the balloon, two adults folded it and the captain called a truck to pick up the basket and passengers. Golly, all this excitement and novelty and it was only the second day of my annual "All Play and No Work" week. I'd just been fishing with my bff Carmel and then to a church ice-cream social with Ace and came to the park to walk it off, and now this.