75th birthday today. Like all of us, life has had significant ups and downs but the net balance is positive. Solid marriage of almost 51 years, financially secure and generally have my wits about me (subject to independent confirmation). Had health challenges, only one of which was potentially fatal, but they were all treated promptly and competently, something not all Americans can say. Brave words, but this limit won’t apply to me. Further adventures await.
So, okay, Mrs. C and I were going to have a long weekend in my much-loved home town. Some good dinners, theater, a special art show, maybe some touristy stuff. As mentioned, hot new restaurant on Thursday, the first night. Food poisoning, up much of the night with bi-directional GI eruptions. Exhausted, in bed asleep most of Friday. Managed to get out to dinner Friday to a favorite place and couldn’t finish an appetizer. We had theater tickets Saturday and did get out to a very funny show called The Play That Went Wrong, although I wasn’t always following it well. Dinner at a little Italian place, where I made it into the second course before giving up.
Then things got worse. Our flight home Sunday wasn’t until 6 so we got to the Metropolitan Museum for the show we wanted to see. It was raining when we went to La Guardia and, as the day ended, a heavy fog settled over the airport. Close to half of the AA flights were canceled, including ours. Got online looking for alternatives. No non-stop seats the next day. Got an airport hotel and booked us through Chicago with a 5.5 hour layover. But La Guardia had high winds Tuesday morning and only one runway was in use. We sat on a taxiway for more than an hour before leaving on a two hour flight. Few seats had been available, so 6’ 3”/ 190 cm me was stuck in a middle seat for 3+ hours. When we got to Chicago our STL flight was running 90 minutes late just because. It turned out to be 3.5 hours late, with a change of aircraft because there was a pressure leak in a cockpit window of the original plane.
So we got home 30 hours late, but we’re here. First world problems, right?
This has turned out to be a disappointing visit to my favorite place in the world for street photography due to Thursday night’s restaurant disaster. Still, there are opportunities. We saw this on 42nd Street, under the viaduct where Park Avenue goes up and around Grand Central Terminal. The person was still there when we came back the other way a couple of hours later. Sadly common in America and likely to get worse.
Yesterday was the rare day with no post. On Thursday night, we went out to a hot new restaurant, shown in Friday’s post. I got food poisoning. Bad. Up much of the night blowing stuff out of both ends. In bed asleep most of yesterday but better today, fortunately. Really blew a hole in a three day trip. This was the scene as we exited Grand Central Terminal onto 42nd Street after the infamous meal.
Well, we’re back in the place I love the best and like to pay for the least. We just got here and so many images! We went to dinner at a new restaurant in Grand Central Terminal, the Grand Brasserie. I thought it might resemble Le Train Bleu at the Gare d’ Ést in Paris. No. A lot louder. This is NYC. The food was pretty good, at New York prices.
Granddaughter Ellie wanted to go to the top of the Arch last weekend so I had to take the usual picture. This isn’t all of downtown St. Louis but it’s the better part of it. I spent my whole working career, 47 years, here. It’s not doing well post-Covid but there are rays of hope. But I’ll be far away later today. Homeward bound.
Sorry for more of the same - but not really. Orchids are a wonderful set of variations on a theme. The color can be so luscious. I wonder if any of these would work in black and white, thinking of Robert Mapplethorpe’s lilies, but they are nearly monochrome to start with. We are traveling Thursday so there will be some new stuff.
The Missouri Botanical Garden has excellent plant scientists, and it’s a subject I don’t know much about. (The area where I grew up had a lot more concrete and asphalt than soil.) The variety of shapes, sizes and colors amazes me. There is a name for each variety but it doesn’t help. Just enjoy the visuals.
Another image from the orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. So many of these flowers look alien, something I couldn’t classify. This one makes me think of shrimp.
I mentioned that I didn’t have any material other than this stuff (not that it’s bad) but my granddaughter and her bestie wanted to go to the Arch yesterday so there will be something from there. And, um, I forgot, we’re going to New York Thursday.
It’s cold and gray February around here, and there’s not much to shoot outside. Fortunately, it’s the time of year for our wonderful botanical garden’s orchid show. I took a tour through yesterday. Lacking anything else of interest, I’ll go with this for a while.
The last part of how a barge flotilla gets through Lock and Dam 26 on the Mississippi. The group has been broken into two sets of two barges long. The lock has been closed behind the front set. In a moment, the front gates will open, bringing the water level down to that of the next section of the river. One of the tan tug boats on the left will come around and pull this group out. Then the second half will repeat the procedure.
In yesterday’s post, we saw how a push boat shoves the whole 3 by 6 barge flotilla into the lock. At this point, the front and back halves have been split and the push boat has (counterintuitively) pulled back the rear half. The lock’s huge gates begin to close on the front. If you can zoom in enough, you might see a tiny worker in a yellow coat on the right and compare it to the massive pistons pushing the gate in. When they are fully closed, the outer gates will open, dropping the water level of the barges.
The front of the barge flotilla pushes into the lock. If you have a big enough monitor you may see two crew members on the front corners. Strikes me as a dangerous job. I may have missed something about how the process works. The upper river flotillas are 3 by 6 barges. (They are at least twice as big on the lower Mississippi without locks.) The whole set pushes part way in. Then the crew breaks apart the front three rows from the back. The push boat pulls the rear barges back out of the lock. What happens next comes tomorrow.
The power it takes to push a barge flotilla on the Mississippi - especially upriver - is almost unimaginable. I once toured one of these boats and the engine was, well, ginormous. There is a tricky way these things have to get through the lock, which we will come to.
Although we didn’t spot any eagles on our trip upriver on Saturday, we did get to see something interesting. An explanation: there is lots of barge traffic on the Mississippi, with 27 locks and dams between Minneapolis and St. Louis. Between us and the Gulf of Mexico, the slope is so gentle that none are needed. The next to last, Number 26, is huge and has a wonderful museum. With a guide, you can go outside and walk around the structure. We were fortunate to see a flotilla entering the lock.
The granddaughter and I drove north to Alton, Illinois, yesterday. It is situated on the Mississippi, below the confluence with the Illinois River and above that with the Missouri River. The area is part of a bird migratory flyway. At this time of year bald eagles pass through and lots of people come looking for them. We didn’t see a single one yesterday, but came upon this strange gate. There was still ice near the river banks so a plunge was unadvisable. It is puzzling but I think a floating dock can be attached.
Seen at a custom motorcycle shop on the edge of a flea market. There is a lot of horsepower ready to roar out of this engine but that conical spike thing looks scary. The bike obviously isn’t finished but you won’t see me riding it.
