Friday, November 2, 2007

Life On the Mississippi: Lewis and Clark

I've used the theme Life On the Mississippi a time or two before and I'm bringing it back for the next several days. The name is the title of a book by the iconic American writer, Mark Twain (1835-1910). Many of you around the world will know him from his books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. If you are interested, you can find the full text of these three books at the links to their titles.

Today's post goes further back in American and St. Louis history. In 1803, the United States under President Thomas Jefferson concluded the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleonic France, doubling the size of our country. Before the deal was complete, Jefferson dispatched Meriweather Lewis and William Clark to explore the vast new territory, The expedition started in Pittsburgh, passed through St. Louis and ended at the mouth of tha Columbia River, near present-day Portland, Oregon, in December 1805.

This statue commemorates Lewis and Clark's landing in St. Louis on their journey into the frontier. Its only artistic fault is that Clark bears a strong resemblance to George Bush. Well, the dog looks pretty dopey, too.

12 comments:

Cheltenhamdailyphoto said...

Blue blue sky how lovely.

Jen said...

I have not been able to see this statute yet and did not realize the resemblence to the current president. too funny. We here in Jeff are also working on a new memorial for Lewis and Clark.

U "R" Us AKA Captain Crowe said...

Cool! Really nice shot. Good call on the long DOF.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Very cool shot, except for the resemblance to BUSH, ugh!

Interesting historical notes, too.

M. CHRISTOPHE said...

I like the angle you choose for this picture...if it was not a statue we can believe it's true life....
Have a good weekend.

Jim Klenke said...

Its a shame Clark looks like Chimpy, poor guy. Is this close to the Admiral?

Kate said...

I've taught HF for years and have had a good time with the novel. Have you read it? If not, shame, shame, shame!! I've always loved the Mississippi. Seeing it at its origin in Itasca, MN is a real trip because you can jump across it. Family tradition.

Andree said...

Now now: don't go maligning a poor puppy like that! LOL

could you tell me how you get your photos to display larger than blogger usually displays?

I am off to flickr now to look at your choices. I have clicked the follow-up comments box (love this new feature!)

Bob Crowe said...

Andree - sorry that my US keyboard doesn't have French accents or I'd spell your name correctly.

Here's how to make the picture bigger, if you use Blogger: after you have uploaded your photo when creating or editing a post, click Edit HTML. Somewhere after the file name you uploaded the string "/320" appears." Change that to "/640" and save. Presto-chango.

Andree said...

thank you so much for the tip! So I should set my default length to 640.

Now, to be a real pain: what if it is portrait and not landscape? can i adjust both vertical and horizontal lengths?

Bob Crowe said...

Andree - it somehow sets itself so that the larger dimension is 640 pixels long, whether portrait or landscape. There are many examples on my blog, all done with the same simple html edit.

Stefan Jansson said...

So this is how it looks.