THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Yesterday we looked down into the baseball stadium from a high rise’s rooftop restaurant. Turning left, we face east toward the Arch, Mississippi River and Illinois. The semicircle in the foreground is the entrance to the underground museum and the trams that ride up the legs to the top.               

PLAY BALL

Going back a couple of weeks. On the day we went downtown to the the reopened Old Courthouse, Mrs. C and I took a lunch break on the top floor restaurant of a high rise hotel. It is called the Hilton At The Ballpark for this reason. There was a day game in progress, sparsely attended on a Wednesday when school was still in session. I like baseball. It is a sport that lacks the crass violence of American football and, unlike hockey, basketball and soccer, doesn’t remind me of Brownian motion.                     

AFTERMATH, PART 2

A more dramatic example of storm damage found in Forest Park. The tornado went through around 3 PM on Friday and this car had the misfortune of being parked at the wrong place at the wrong time.                   

AFTERMATH

I went to our largest city park to see what might be visible from Friday’s storm and tornado. A lot of trees were down and there was some structural damage. I wish there were a person in this picture to give it scale but this is a big tree. The right side of the shard in the center foreground is about as high as an average person.

It seemed better to avoid the residential area nearby that suffered worse damage. Some of the streets are narrow and the relief crews didn’t need me in the way. However, tomorrow we’ll see a more striking example of the damage.                 

STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER

There is a farm across the Mississippi in Illinois whose business is pick it yourself. Eckert’s rotates through strawberries, peaches, apples and pumpkins in season. It’s strawberry time and we took granddaughter Ellie and a friend yesterday. Fill up a basket and pay for it by weight. I later found that they charge more than the supermarket but it was fun for the kids and amusing to see all the families engaging in field labor.                       

WOULD YOU TRY IT? AND SOME BAD NEWS

Mrs. C and I went to a special wine dinner last night at a favorite local place. Parking is in the rear so we went in and out by a back door. When we left, there was a large group of people behind an adjacent store that sells outdoor equipment, https://www.fieldtheory.us/. It was a party for a runners’ club after a group exercise.

There was a tiny, two-person sauna with a tub of ice in front. This young woman showed no signs of pain after jumping in. Did the ice or the sauna come first? The rubber duckie must help.

Our American friends may have heard that a tornado hit us yesterday afternoon. Not in my neighborhood, but there has been extensive damage in the central-north area of the city with five deaths reported so far. The link may not be up to date - https://tinyurl.com/56kpjpv3 

               

DOME WITHIN A DOME

A model of the Old Courthouse made mostly of clear plastic, revealing some of its interior structure. I’m particularly interested in how much larger the outer dome is than the inner one, pictured recently.