Typical flow on the Rio Grande this time of year is about 1,000 cubic feet per second (cvs), but our gangbuster spring has the river flowing about five times average right now. That’s nothing compared to a real river. The Mississippi River at Thebes, Illinois, is flowing at 247,000 cfs right now, and that’s low for late April. But in the desert, we take what we can get, so Lissa and I went up to the Alameda river crossing at sunset this evening to take a look.

Thanks to Google Maps, that’s the Alameda bridges across the Rio. The bottom one, the one that curves, is the new road bridge. They one above it in the picture is the old bridge, which they closed to cars but kept for walkers and bikers and such. It’s the best spot to look at the river, because of the way it hovers over that island in the middle. Only this evening, it wasn’t an island. It’s mostly entirely under water, and the sand bar that you see in the top right of the picture is gone. It’s lovely.