Theme Day: Graffiti

Get together a bunch of stone workers with chisels on lunch break and this is the graffiti you get! Top two photos from Elephant Rocks State Park in Missouri; last photo from Giant City State Park in southern Illinois.

October First Theme Day on City Daily Photo: Graffiti

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Theme Day: Reflections

The Gateway Arch, bedrock of my photographic life in St Louis for 16 months!

On the first of every month, City Daily Photo hosts Theme Day. This month the theme is reflections. 

I took this at sunrise from the Illinois side of Eads Bridge last fall, as our time in St. Louis was swiftly coming to a close.

It was my great privilege to have the joy of exploring the city of St. Louis and fractions of the states of Missouri and Illinois for sixteen months. I may never be a mid-westerner again, but I now readily understand from experience that there is a great deal to love about the region and its people.

I very well remember the election when John Kerry was running against George Bush. I drove through the midwest on my way to Colorado and Utah that fall. Where I came from, in upstate NY, there was some conviction that Kerry could win. Being a Democrat, I must admit that I was hopeful, though not particularly thrilled with Kerry.

But as I hit Kentucky, and then Illinois, and then Missouri, and then Kansas, and without even talking politics with anyone, not a soul, I began to understand that Kerry didn't have a prayer. The lives of many midwesterners just didn't seem to match the message we were getting from the Democrats and Kerry that year. I still cannot find a clear way to explain this feeling that I had. I just knew it to be true. Call it intuition, which we all know is based upon a lifetime of experience! 

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Konza Prairie

Konza Prairie near Manhattan Kansas.

We stopped at Konza on May 14 a year ago on our way back from the West. I had just gotten off the Colorado River, Ed had met up with me at Albuquerque and we had a week for driving home. In Santa Fe we learned that his mother had died, and so the trip took on a different life than we had planned. Things have a funny way of working out that way some times. 

Konza is close to the northern end of the Flint hills, those hills immortalized by William Least Heat-Moon in PrairyErth. It was early in the growing season, so we didn't see the great diversity of flowering plants that we might have seen in another month, or two. Instead we saw the views, the bones of the landscape, and migrating birds, and buffalo far off in the distance. Everything in this picture is part of Konza, preserved as a fragment of the heartland before Europeans descended upon it and plowed it up. The Flint Hills defied the plow and so the tenacious and precious prairie survives.

NEW YORK POST Headline: 2ND GIG=EXTRA GIGS

We were shocked to discover that in his obsessive quest for extra memory the famous St. Louis photog took on a second career in Binghamton NY.  "No, the commute isn't great, but our customers are outstanding, and that has made it all worthwhile," says Crowe. 

Tiffany Dome atop the Atrium at Marshall Field

This week last year I spend the better part of a day in Chicago in transit to Syracuse to uncover our perennial garden of its fall coat of suffocating leaves. We had been gone to St. Louis for seven months. If I could give it a good going-over, I hoped it would have a better chance to survive the lack of care until the summer, when I would be back to give it a stiff weeding. We, of course, still had no idea that we would be moving back to Syracuse and our home and garden.

So, I had this luxurious day to explore a city I know very little about. I took the train from St. Louis early in the morning and had about 9 hours before the overnight to New York was due to depart.

I set out on foot. Who hasn't heard of Marshall Field? I wanted to see this architectural landmark, and what I found, among other things, is this Tiffany dome on a five story atrium. The store has changed hands; it retains all the grandeur of its original conception and it has multiple historic designations that will help ensure its survival.     

Shaw's Garden

Witch hazel February 15 2009

Shaw's Garden

On the same day we visited the orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Garden last year, at about this time of year, we wandered outside into the garden. It was an overcast and misty day, conditions that make the garden a much different experience than on a sunny day. Here Henry Shaw's country home comes into view looking up a main axis of the garden.

Double Slide

Double Slide by Karyn Oliver at Laumeier Sculpture Park, taken about a year ago. It always makes us chuckle.

Snow near Syracuse

Hello from Syracuse.  We have a lot of snow here in Central NY.  

In the city there is about 16 inches, though it will settle over the coming warm (high 30s) spell.  There is no snow left on the trees because the sun came out yesterday making a big difference on any surface it hit.

I took this yesterday morning twenty miles east of here and 700 feet higher. Altitude makes a big difference.

I am posting many winter pictures on Merry@Syracuse, http://merryatsyracuse.blogspot.com/  

my new blog about life in Central NY, and further afield when we can get away!  

St. Louis: Around Town

Maybe you didn't know that St. Louis is the home of Tums, the perfect New Year's Day antidote.  Hope you had a happy one!

PS: Toasted Ravioli...yuk! Tums are good for that, too.

I've begun my new blog in Syracuse called Merry@Syracuse. Please visit.

Gateway Arch

I wish for a New Year that brings you 

and all the world's people safety and peace.

Mark Twain School

Another of my tile finds, this time on the Mark Twain School on the far North side of the city. It is an Ittner school, now abandoned. Blow it up for best effect. I promise to post everything in the way of architecture and ornamentation that I have, which is considerable, on St. Louis Mosaic, my second blog, as soon as I get a block of time. 

I now have a third blog, Merry@Syracuse, as we have moved back to Syracuse NY, in my old home region. Expect lots of pictures of snow in the next while over there. We got twelve and a half inches 

in the past 24 hours.   

Shaw's Garden

To celebrate and amuse us during the holiday weeks the Garden creates a flower and train show, this year commemorating the Garden's 150th Anniversary. Someone created models of all the buildings, and Henry Shaw is everywhere.  Miniature staff are involved in lots of interesting activities.  Be sure to scroll down to find out what happened to a hapless Climatron gardener.

Gateway Arch with Snow

We got a bit of snow, so I hurried to the Arch.  Scroll down to see other scenery from up top.

Top and center...see the legs of the Arch and the covered entrances.  The black lines are the snow brush machine tracks.

The Old Courthouse looks like a model.

The Original Cardinals

Claudia                      Ernesto