Gateway Arch

St. Louis Zoo

Art Hill

Treemonisha

This monumental steel sculpture in near-South City was created by Chicago sculptor John Henry to honor the opera Treemonisha by Scott Joplin. Joplin lived here for a time just a few blocks away. 

Treemonisha's story brings up timeless struggles between education and ignorance, and between reconciliation and retribution. It was not staged during Joplin's lifetime.

Ah, Thanksgiving Day

Ah, Thanksgiving Day

Instructions for living a life: 

Pay attention. 

Be astonished. 

Tell about it.

- MARY OLIVER -

Wild Turkeys in Nebraska

Click to enlarge for full glorious effect.

Forest Park

A boy, edging his way across the outside of the bridge structure, parents unafraid.

Jeanne-Claude, In Memory

We very sadly note that Jeanne-Claude, artistic partner and wife of Christo, passed away on November 18.  We experienced The Gates in NYC in February 2005.  We loved it.  She will be very much missed.

Forest Park

We Northeasterners are agog with the Missouri Novembers.  Sunny sixty degrees on November 21, a trip around the lagoon on a peddleboat at the Boathouse, leisurely lunch outdoors and the waiter brings water for Joli and all of the many other dogs there..we are going to miss this!

Forest Park

Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis

Citygarden

Shaw's Garden

Yesterday was a wet day at the Botanical Garden, moody and close. I like the emphasis on the near distance imposed by a rainy day.

Toynbee Artifact

In my world stuff embedded in asphalt have become Toynbee artifacts. Google Toynbee tiles to clarify the reference.

Syracuse Preview

The view from our house east toward Syracuse University.

Syracuse Preview

Syracuse sits on Iroquois homeland.  The Onondagas are and always have been box lacrosse champions. Before they built a modern arena for lacrosse and ice hockey, the Redhawks played outdoors at a field at the Onondaga Nation.  I like this portrait painted on the wall of the refreshment stand. I highly recommend a New Yorker article published in 1998 by John Seabrook about the Onondagas and box lacrosse. John Seabrook, The Sporting Scene, “The Gathering of the Tribes,” The New Yorker, September 7, 1998, p. 30 

Syracuse Preview

The famous traffic light on Tipperary Hill!

Syracuse Preview

Our gardens!  There are built-in boxes on the back deck, and hens-and-chicks gone wild!

Syracuse Preview

Onondaga Creek:  Syracuse's River des Peres.  In St. Louis, the River des Peres is utterly channelized as it flows through the city, and so is Onondaga Creek.  And both become channels for an overflow mixture of sewage backup and street run-off when it rains a lot. Poor planning, and now extremely expensive to remedy.


How clear it is flowing right now!  We have run the creek in our canoe, and participated in the annual creek cleanup.  You would not believe how much stuff ends up in the creek...bikes, teevees, baby strollers, tires, pipe, wallets.  

Syracuse Preview

Crows!  There are tens of thousands of crows here, and I am crazy about them. They are smart, they talk, they have family ties, they clean up the roadsides, and more, much more.


Back in Syracuse for the week, this time with a Syracuse daily photo blog in mind, I am finding so much old familiar stuff that jumps out at me in a different way as subject matter for the blog.


Thinking in terms of a daily photo blog has been and will continue to be a great and wonderful challenge.


Now for a name!

Syracuse Preview

Coffee!  Freedom of Espresso has a good history.  Originally named Federal Espresso, soon FedEx or actually Federal Express before they rebranded their name, thought this little coffee shop was competing and went to court. The big guys had more money and so then, at least for a time, the name might have been ExFederal Espresso. Big guys nixed that too. Freedom of Espresso finally emerged, grew to 4 locations and brews great coffee.

I drove 900 miles to Syracuse, from whence we came to St. Louis last year, and to whence we return at the end of this year, to work on the house we kept and are so happy to be able to go back to. It is a week of reminders of why we like upstate NY.

Gateway Arch

Shaw's Garden

Mississippi River Ferry

Returning home from visiting my nephew in Iowa City, I drove through a section of the countryside south of Keokuk, southernmost point in Iowa.

In the stretch of Mississippi River between Keokuk and Quincy IL is a small ferry that runs between Canton MO and Meyer IL.  At this time of year it runs constantly, ferrying large grain trucks between Missouri fields and the grain elevators in Meyer.

Aboard the ferry with me were two empty grain trucks returning to Missouri for more corn, and a dump truck. 

On Google Maps you can actually see the ferry at mid-river, Lock and Dam #20 up-river from the crossing, and the grain elevators just above the lock and dam at Meyer.  Meyer is a very small town built on stilts behind the levee.

Gateway Arch

St. Louis: Trick the Eye

Like magic, Trompe L'oeil is fun. 

St. Louis has at least two large buildings with exteriors finished to look very different from the originals. This is the back of the Lennox Hotel built in 1929.

See the man standing on the balcony?

Shaw's Garden

Chrysanthemum Wall

St. Louis: around town

I really love this little dog and its accommodating family.  It avidly watches the corner from its first floor perch and the evidence indicates that this was its idea. Also, it doesn't bark.

Gateway Arch: River in Flood

This morning the Mississippi River is flooding, though not seriously and expected to start receding by tomorrow, because of the tremendous amount of rain that fell here last week.


There are six-twelve inches of water covering the riverfront drive. The two sightseeing river boats are currently moored well above the brick waterfront apron where people often park while visiting the Arch.  

The second photo is from two days ago at the top of the Arch and shows the top of William Clark's hat on the bronze sculpture Captains' Return.

The third and fourth photos of Captains' Return are from last year when the river was at different stages. The river is in constant flux and not necessarily influenced just by local weather.

I took the fifth photo earlier this fall from a parapet on the Eads Bridge on the Illinois side of the river. Captains' Return is near the base of the bridge and well out of water.

Gateway Arch