Grand Tower Bridge

Grand Tower, Illinois:

Texas-

Illinois Natural Gas Pipeline Mississippi River crossing

The towers are 245 feet tall; the cross supports are 225 feet long; the bridge length is 2161.5 feet.

I actually liked algebra and trig in High School. If they had told us that sines, cosines and tangents had applications like this, I would have loved them.

The following website has photos and lots of interesting technical stuff about trains, planes and automobiles, and bridges. Here is the page about this bridge:

http://www.johnweeks.com/river_mississippi/pagesC/umissC13.html

Grand Tower, the city, is 30 miles north of Cape Girardeau.

The following web page is about Grand Tower, the city. Then go to their home page to find a cool website about two St. Louisians' explorations of the entire Mississippi River including all the towns that front on the river:

http://users.stlcc.edu/jangert/grndtwr/photos.html

Delta, Missouri

Belgian mares and their napping mule babies

Surprise Lily Week

Lycoris squamigera

naked lady

surprise lily

spider lily

magic lily

mystery lily

resurrection lily

hardy amaryllis

pink flamingo flower

Little Grand Canyon

Joli and I spent an easy half day walking and scrambling in the Little Grand Canyon National Natural Landmark in southern Illinois.

Look at these steps carved into the stone, otherwise steep and slippery, by a CCC crew in the 1930s. They show up just when you need them.

Cape Girardeau

High water on the Mississippi on May 28 compared to the low flow today.

Grand Bluffs Conservation Area

Hiking to Grand Bluffs Conservation Area overlook above the Missouri River and the Katy Trail, the path passes through oak forest, savannah, glade and prairie to a deck with this fine view.

We continue satisfying our desire to see and experience this region of so much natural beauty.

Forest Park

A large group of slider and snapper turtles is available for viewing in the waters beneath the footbridge in Pagoda Circle; just bring them a snack.

Forest Park

Nathan Frank Bandstand lifts off

St. Louis: around town

This well cared for flower and vegetable garden is five minutes from City Hall. It is a work of art. I've been watching it all spring and summer but haven't spotted the gardener. Note the banana plants and the height of the corn.

Tower Grove Park

These bronze casts of plants in the Amazon basin and animals on the side of an Andean volcano are details on side panels on the base of the statue of Alexander von Humboldt, German botanist and explorer of South America, near the center of Tower Grove Park.  

Shaw's Garden

Shaw's Garden

digital funny business

Shaw's Garden

Dale Chihuly's floating glass onions in the central pool at the Missouri Botanical Garden  

catch  the light in wonderful ways. His work shines in outdoor settings. Check out the following sites, among others:

Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix 

http://www.dbg.org/index.php/chihuly/gallery

NY Botanical Garden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcyid-9VvM8

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami

http://www.chihuly.com/installations/fairchild/index.html

Holy Cow Dept.

Armed militia on turquoise Harley Softail on Pine St.

Between Hannibal and Louisiana

Looking south from a hilltop along the road to Louisiana. 

Iowa City

Today I drove north to see my sister and nephew in Iowa City.  

My sister's garden, a labor of many years, is absolutely lovely. She raises the bar in Adirondack love for she has transplanted an Adirondack forest to Iowa seedling by seedling. 

Hannibal

Just about everyone in Hannibal passes through Java Jive, the First Coffee Shop West of the Mississippi. It's a great spot.

Hannibal

Trains cross the river to and from Illinois as well as up and down the river.

Hannibal

We spend a week in Hannibal now and then in connection with Ed's work.  

This is some of the stuff of towboating.  Here this small towboat is tied up at its Hannibal dock. It shuttles barges in the area.

Current River

We are canoe enthusiasts and were sad to leave our familiar Adirondack lakes when we moved to Missouri.

We soon learned that Missouri has beautiful, clear swift rivers including three designated and protected riverways, the Current and Jacks Fork (Ozark National Scenic Riverways), and the Eleven Point (National Wild and Scenic River).

We made an exploratory trip to that southern region to test the distance, learn more about the area, and most important, to give Joli some river time.

This is a popular area, and we could see that there were hundreds of people in canoes on the rivers on a warm July Saturday.

We will go back with our canoes this fall when things are quieter. Meanwhile we will explore the Bourbeurse, Gasconade and Meramec closer to home in coming weekends. They will also surely be busy as the summer heat builds.

Here is Round Spring, at the head of a tributary of the Current River.

Our glasses fogged up when we got out of the car and stepped into the humid air of the river bottomland.

Gateway Arch

Gateway Arch

tangent

St. Louis: around town

Citygarden will only become more beautiful as the multitude of glorious plantings of Missouri natives matures.

Palenque

1975

Palenque is a Maya ruin of archeo-logical significance situated right on the geographic and botanic line between the mountains of Chiapas and the Yucatan lowlands.

Dense jungle and clear mountain streams surround the site. The weather can be dramatic, and the light was always interesting.

In 1987 Palenque became a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Today and the last two days I've posted photos from earlier travels. I think it is interesting to see what was possible before the digital revolution. Film was challenging. It made me concentrate in a different way.

Ios

1968

With my sister in Greece after she finished up her junior year abroad.

From Piraeus we took an overnight ferry to Ios, a smaller island in the Cyclades south east of Athens.  We slept a short night on deck and were brought ashore on a small launch in the dark.

Ios was quiet and people were friendly.  

I read that it is known for being a party island now.  Too bad.

This picture was an early morning stroke of luck, taken with a Hawkeye Instamatic.

Athens

1968

Greece, with my sister

One could walk up to and on the Parthenon

Kodak Hawkeye Instamatic camera

Missouri Botanical Garden

Rainy day in the Japanese garden.   

Maturing prairie garden.

 

Wind sculptures in the prairie garden by Lyman Whitaker.  

There are six Whitaker sculptures at MOBOT.

St. Louis: around town

Citygarden: sculpture detail

St. Louis: around town

At the game on Wednesday night.

St. Louis: around town

Citygarden: watch, explore, immerse, merge

St. Louis: around town

Citygarden opened yesterday and it is wonderful! There are three water features. Each one is fun to watch, explore and experience.