STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE TRIP THAT WENT WRONG

 

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?                          

WHY WE CAME HERE

Mrs. C and I subscribe to the digital edition of the New York Times. One morning in early January she read an article and passed it to me, https://tinyurl.com/4s5amvuy (I hope it’s not behind a paywall). "Ï’d really like to see that!” she told me. I asked her what she had on in the middle of February. Nothing special, so I opened my laptop and here we are.

Armia Khalil is an Egyptian immigrant, a sculptor and a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 13 years. How he became acquainted with a Met curator who took an interest in his work and ended up placing this in a current exhibition is much too long a story for here. I commend the Times article to you. The sculpture is titled “Hope — I Am a Morning Scarab.” The scarab beetle was a symbol of hope for the ancient Egyptians and one appears on the top of the head.  

Other than that, I still can’t eat much and am pretty weak thanks to Thursday’s restaurant. La Guardia Airport was socked with fog yesterday and our flight was canceled. We’ll get home today through inconvenient routes and times, but we’ll get there.              

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - OUTREACH

 

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.              

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - TAXI!

 

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.                

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - DINNER IN MANHATTAN

 

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.           

THESE LITTLE TOWN BLUES

 

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.                      

AT THE ORCHID SHOW 5

 

POW. I promise I’ll get to something new. Traveling tomorrow. Home sweet home.                 

AT THE ORCHID SHOW 4

 

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.                      

AT THE ORCHID SHOW 3

 

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.                  

AT THE ORCHID SHOW 2

 

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.                  

AT THE ORCHID SHOW

 

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.                

HOW IT GETS THROUGH, PART 3

 

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.          

HOW IT GETS THROUGH, PART 2

 

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.                     

HOW IT GETS THROUGH, PART 1

 

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.                         

POWER SOURCE

 

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.             

A BARGE IN THE LOCK

 

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.                      

WELL, YOU COULD WALK AROUND IT

 

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.                  

CITY DAILY PHOTO FEBRUARY THEME - MOTORS

 

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.                       

I SUPPOSE I SHOULD GO TO THIS

 

There are lots of smaller ice sculptures in front of businesses along Delmar Boulevard during the Loop Ice Carnival. They used to be more complex, full 3-D designs. Now they are 2-D slabs with etchings. Looks like there was a mural festival, whatever that is, last year but it didn’t come to my attention. The reason for the lion face is the two big lion sculptures at the entrance to the city hall of the municipality, University City.                 

CHAIN SAW

 

There is always an ice sculpture demonstration at the Loop Ice Carnival. It looks like they start with a block and etch a pattern into it. I wish I had been there later in the day to see the 3-D finish work.                       

ICE QUEEN AND KING

Posing for family pictures at the Loop Ice Carnival. There are always stilt walkers. Hard for me to comprehend, given my wobbly state of balance. (I had a physical therapy gait and balance evaluation yesterday and they said I could use some work.) I like the cotton snowballs on the man’s hat.                  

CHUCK

 

The statue of St. Louisan Chuck Berry in the Delmar Loop. He frequently performed at Blueberry Hill across the street. I had forgotten how old this statue is. It was dedicated on July 29, 2011 and I went to photograph it. I was slightly acquainted with the sculptor, Harry Weber - I had photographed some of his other work - and he got me into the private reception at Blueberry Hill. I’ve photographed Berry in concert but that’s when I got a close-up. https://tinyurl.com/3x9adbaw                       

ICE CARNIVAL

 

Tle Loop is a stretch of Delmar Boulevard reaching across the city limits into University City, so-named because it includes a large part of Washington University, one of the country’s top schools. Years ago, the trolley cars coming out of the city turned around at a track loop at the end of the strip. Now it is full of interesting restaurants, stores and bars. They have an ice carnival every January, more about which to come.

The restaurant, bar and performance venue Blueberry Hill is the anchor. St. Louisan Chuck Berry performed there frequently. We’ll see Chuck tomorrow.                     

GUSTAV WAS HERE

 

March, 1973: I was a broke law student who went to a bar on St. Patrick’s Day with my roommate, having only pocket change between us. The crowd literally pushed me into a young woman whom I found attractive. One thing led to another and I asked her out on a first date. It wasn’t the norm at the time, but we went to the St. Louis Symphony (cheapest seats) and heard Mahler’s First Symphony, one of my favorites. 52 years later, we are hearing it again today at the SLSO.    

The Mahler Ballroom in our Central West End, https://www.mahlerballroom.com/, was a dance academy and center of St, Louis society in the early 20th Century. It has been beautifully restored and is now an event space.             

STYLE HOUSE

 

St. Louis STyLe House, on funky Cherokee Street, where you can buy all things St. Louis-y. I have a coffee cup from there, designed in the colors and typeface of municipal trucks, used as a pen holder.                                      

POLITICAL OPINION

 

Seen along the route to my granddaughter’s school. The vehicle never moves. Note the license plate. Personalized plates are cheap in Missouri. Interpret as you will.                         

SOMEBODY FIND A WARMING SHELTER

 

Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France, and his steed look like they need more than a horse blanket.The statue, seen here a number of times over the years, is called The Apotheosis of Saint Louis, standing in front of the art museum and overlooking Art Hill.                 

STILL...

 

Well, it was as cold as expected yesterday and I still didn’t feel like getting out. So, back into the archives. But the real news in this country is the big storm along the Gulf coast. (And it’s still the Gulf of Mexico, no matter what someone says.) Record-breaking snow in New Orleans. New Orleans! Many streets are lined with palm trees. This stuff is an inconvenience for us, but it’s shattering for them.                

COLD WATER

 

We are having the coldest weather we’ve had in years. The forecast high is for today 9 F / -13 C. No trash talk from people in Minnesota, etc. We are on about the same parallel as Madrid and Rome, and these days we are more accustomed to record high temperatures. This is an old picture taken from a walkway over the center of the Mississippi. We are not far downstream from the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. The ice all comes from the Missouri, which flows freely. The Mississippi is damed nearby, preventing the formation of ice.                              

ONDER WINS!

People from other countries are amazed at American lawyer advertising. (As an American lawyer, I am, too.) The state authorities that grant our licenses used to consider it undignified, uncouth. Some decades ago our Supreme Court declared that it is protected free speech. Almost all of the many billboards are for plaintiff personal injury firms. That’s where the big money is.

What I really like about this image, though, Is the rhythmic parade of concrete railroad trestle supports, colorfully splashed with graffiti and receding into the background. 

May need to dip into the archives for a bit. It’s been unusually cold for unusually long by our standards, and it’s about to get colder. This old guy ain’t wandering around  outside.                  

IN CASE YOU NEED DIRECTIONS

 

If you were standing there and simply turned to your left you would figure it out. Still, it’s a friendly gesture. I’m impressed by how well the sign painter got the dimensions of the Arch. It is a catenary curve, exactly as wide as it is tall. It sure doesn’t look like that, though, unless you are facing it straight on.                     

SOME MELTING

 

We’ve had a couple days of milder temperatures. The packed snow and ice receded a little but there is a lot to go, and we’re back in the freezer tonight. Of course, the roads are clearest where there is the most traffic, unlike the lonely post-industrial area south of the Arch.                      

LOST KITTY

I’m out of current material so I’m dipping into the archives to continue the snow theme. This in a park close to our home, taken during a storm. I hope the cat found some shelter.                        

DUCKS ON ICE

 

A little bit down the road in Forest Park. There are always ducks around the water features, and sometimes geese. (Who can be really mean. Don’t mess with them.)  The ducks are far better insulated than we are and don’t give a quack about the cold. I do. I wish I could have gotten a better POV over the grass but the snow was piled up so high beside by the plows that I couldn’t get up on it.              

LATE WINTER AFTERNOON, SOFT LIGHT

 

Still closer to sunset. The blue of the shaded snow is touched by a bit of gold in the sky.                    

REALLY BAD IDEA

 

This is the bottom of Art Hill, seen yesterday. The body of water in the foreground is called the Grand Lagoon. The bottom of the hill is supposed to have a row of hay bales and orange net fencing to prevent sledders from flying off the bottom to a drop of about a meter. It’s all been knocked away. Some foolish people thought it would be fun to walk out on the frozen part, which could not have been more than a couple of centimeters thick. I didn’t wait long enough to see if anyone fell through.

SLEDDING ON ART HILL

Late afternoon at STL’s premier sledding venue, Art Hill. (That’s the art museum on top.) We don’t get much snow anymore and it’s cold enough that it’s sticking around, so there was a big turnout. The lagoon is partly frozen and there are some very unwise people out on the ice. Maybe more about that tomorrow.                        

GOALPOSTS

 

Southwest Park, Webster Groves, the suburb where we live. The view is behind where I was for yesterday’s photo of Hawken House. As the years pass, it becomes rarer for us to get this much snow.                     

HAWKEN HOUSE

 

It’s been a long time since I have had a post about this place. The view is two or three minutes walk from my front door. A historic building by our standards, built for local Christopher Hawken in 1867, https://tinyurl.com/2xhv72kz . We don’t get the white trim very often.                

ICE CAT

 

Everybody loves Niki de Saint Phalle’s work. If you have been there, think of the whimsical fountain outside the Pompidou museum in Paris. This one, Ricardo Cat, sits near the entrance  to Laumeier Sculpture Park. Although it’s in the snow, I think it radiates its own heat.

More snow today. Although winters have become milder over my years in this town, there are still data points toward the end of the curve.                    

EYE-CONIC

 

This sculpture was in the background of yesterday’s post. I referred to it as iconic for Laumeier Sculpture Park. It was only later that I realized that this was an opportunity for a really terrible pun.

Odd that there is not a hint of an optic nerve in the back.                       

A QUESTION OF VISION

The roads were passable yesterday so I took my camera out to Laumeier Sculpture Park, a lesser known gem in our area. It has 102 acres / 42 hectares of open fields and hilly wooded trails studded with contemporary art. A piece called Aurelia Roma by Manuel Neri has a protective wrap for the winter. The park’s iconic work, Tony Tasset’s Eye, stares back.

I should acknowledge that this picture was inspired by one that appeared in our local newspaper this week. Although the paper is a shadow of what it once was (Joseph Pulitzer’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch), it has some damn fine photographers.                      

TOYOTA ON ICE

The snow, sleet and freezing rain ended Monday morning. It wasn’t a record snowfall but there may have been an unusual record: if you melted all the varieties of precipitation and just measured the liquid, the total volume may have been a record for a winter storm.

This was Mrs. C’s Prius encased In ice on Sunday afternoon. It was completely snow-covered by Monday. We were not able to get out of our street yesterday but we will today.                     

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

 

A significant winter storm has been sweeping across the middle latitudes of the U.S. from Kansas toward the east coast. This was my street yesterday afternoon. Snow is predicted to continue through Sunday night into Monday morning. It will be followed by very cold (for us) temperatures, 2 F / -17 C Wednesday night. We are on about the same parallel as Madrid and Rome so this doesn’t happen much, but there is a lot of flat land between here and Canada.                   

TOWN HOUSES IN LAFAYETTE SQUARE

 

Five of the elegant townhouses along Lafayette Square. They are architecturally identical with different decorative details. You might be able to see it if you enlarge the image, but all but the left building have unusual scroll decor on the top floor dormer windows. Two of the five have identical filigree fencing on the top. The one on the left appears to be for sale if you are interested.

By the time this post goes up, we expect to be in a big snow and ice storm. I’ll get out with a camera but probably not further than our door.                   

A POND IN THE SQUARE

 

A charming landscaped pond in Lafayette Square, containing the park's two resident swans. There are lots more geese and ducks in a bigger pond. The square’s elegant row houses are in the background.

We expect to get bombed by a snow and ice storm tonight and tomorrow, followed by frigid cold. What can I see from our front porch?                               

NOT THE PAINTER

 

Back into the Lafayette Square images. We are expecting a significant ice and snow storm from tonight into Monday morning, followed by bitter cold (by our standards). Won’t be on the street for a bit.

When you walk into the park from one of the corners you are confronted with this imposing, pompous statue. A few people walked up to the base and I asked them about the small black plaque on the base. They said it referred to Thomas Hart Benton. "Oh,”I said. “The famous painter of the Midwest and the Mississippi River.” But what about the inscription on the pedestal? Turns out this THB is a Missouri politician, one of our original senators when we entered the union in 1820. The painter is his great great grand nephew.

The inscription on the pedestal is still very strange.     

NOT SNOW

 

So, it’s 2025 and rolling towards the end of St. Louis Daily Photo’s 18th year. Also looks like I’ve made it through my third quarter century. I need to go out and find some fresh ways to look at this town but I may have to look into the archives for a bit. This looks like it could be a winter scene in Forest Park - but what’s with that very liquid water jet? The image is one of my attempts to do infrared in color, taken in summer.                     

CITY DAILY PHOTO JANUARY THEME - PICTURE OF THE YEAR

 

New Year’s Day, and time for City Daily Photo members to give us their best shot, so to speak. This isn’t St. Louis but it is my home town, so that’s good enough. Taken from a taxi window somewhere in midtown Manhattan last summer in the haze of late afternoon. It’s a real piece of New York. Will you dine with me? 

City Daily members from around the world show us their very best stuff today  https://citydailyphoto.org/category/theme-days/ .