One of the stops on the Nicaragua tour was El Mirador de Catarina, located in the town of the same name. The view is of the extinct Apoyo volcano, whose caldera is filled with water to the depth of 200 meters. I didn't know the snack quesillos. Turns out there are varieties across Latin America, both sweet and savory. The Nicaraguan version is a thick corn tortilla, soft cheese, pickled onion and a sauce. I might have tried one but the stand was closed.
A nicer than average house in Granada, Nicaragua. No light coming in from the front. Windows traditionally face an interior courtyard.
We have not had a good flying experience on this trip. As I mentioned, both our STL - DFW and DFW - LIR segments were four hours late. Not too much inconvenience, as we had planned to overnight at DFW anyway. On Saturday, our inbound plane to Liberia was on time. However, The Liberia CR airport is so far over capacity in high season that the plane had to wait a long time for a gate to open, so much so that the pilots timed out and can't fly all the way to Dallas. So we are landing in Houston to get another crew. Customs and immigration there, then on to Dallas, where we will miss the last flight to STL of the night.
Never been to Houston. We've visited Kathmandu, El Calafate, Alice Springs and X'ían, but never America's fourth largest city. I could do without.
An autorickshaw or tuk-tuk, if you will, in the old colonial town of Granada, Nicaragua. I think that's Our Lady of Guadalupe on the back, along with a sticker of a hostile, science fiction-y face. Vaya con Dios.
I've done some reading about Nicaragua since our visit Tuesday. Its GDP per capita in 2024 was US$ 2,600 per year, second poorest in the western hemisphere after Haiti. There are trucks and vans, but horse drawn carts are common.
It is striking, though, that Nicaragua's main roads are clearly better than Costa Rica's. Chinese foreign aid, according to our guide. I'll find an illustration.
We spent a lot of time on the road Tuesday driving north from the Costa Rican border into Nicaragua. This is the southern town of Rivas. Some general impressions: Nicaragua is notably poorer than CR. The houses are mostly smaller and in rough shape. The cars are older and more beat up, and there are fewer of them. Lots of horse-drawn carts. In more populous areas, there are many autorickshaws, like you see in parts of Asia. Busses and some trucks are as festively painted and religiously decorated as in India. Few if any modern strip centers that are now common in CR. Many fewer supermarkets; our guide said they are too expensive and people prefer to buy from local roadside vendors. Flags are everywhere, with more of Daniel Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front than the national flag.
The day was exhausting and we took yesterday off. More of this to come.
. . . that we watch spider monkeys on a volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua, eating fruit provided by tourists during a boat ride. As I mentioned, this is a big lake (19th largest in the world), with volcanoes in and around it. Some big blow sent huge chunks of black rock through the air, creating a group of islands in the northwest corner. This pair of monkeys were settled here, we were told, for rehab purposes.
Late post today. The tour company picked us up at 4 AM and got us back at 9 PM. Now a slow day.
Another scene on Playa Langosta. Dad needs to keep a careful watch among the waves and rocks. Looonnnggg day trip up into Nicaragua today. They are picking us up at our condo at 4:15 AM. Hope we can drag ourselves out in time.
Back to our old haunts on Playa Langosta. Lots of surfing here and at next-door Playa Tamarindo.The waves are big enough to be interesting but not so much as to be dangerous - with one exception. This was shot just short of high tide. Lots of the beach has sharp, black volcanic rock, mostly submerged at this time. You really need to know where you are going or wait for low tide.
Stefan asked for pictures of volcanoes, among other things, when we got to Costa Rica. The route into the airport at Liberia, where we always go, comes down the western shore of Lake Nicaragua, which is pretty darn big. It contains an island with two volcanoes, the larger one called Ometepe, which last erupted in 1983.
I can usually get some good shots when we arrive early to mid afternoon. But, remember how our Friday flight was four hours late? Well, yesterday's flight was four hours late for reasons I won't begin to discuss. It was hazy and the sun was setting as we flew through here. I hope to get much better pictures Tuesday when we take a long day trip into Nicaragua.
Gate C 12 yesterday afternoon at beautiful Lambert St. Louis International Airport. (No one today knows who Lambert was.) The plan was to fly to American Airlines' biggest hub at Dallas-Ft. Worth, spend the night, and then go on to Costa Rica this morning. However, our flight to DFW was four hours late. As usual, the gate agents know nothing, see nothing and say nothing. Later, a flight attendant who worked the flight into STL said there was an air leak in the back of the cabin that created a terrible noise. It got fixed after a long time.
Lots of people missed connections but no one freaked out. We had a hotel room waiting for us so it was okay.
Maybe not the best picture from Art In Bloom, but it's a travel day. Flying today to a giant airline hub and spending the night. Saturday morning down to our home away from home in Costa Rica. I think it's +/- our twenty-third visit to the country over some decades (we obviously like it). Anybody want to see pictures of beautiful Dallas - Ft. Worth International Airport?
The title reminds me of calculus, which I had to take in college as a psych major. I was hopeless at it, and if it wasn't for the help of a friend who went on to a successful career in medicine, I might not have passed. I was better with the verbal stuff, which led to law school.
Art In Bloom always has an arrangement in front of this window. Usually you can see straight across the central hall, but at the moment it is blocked by the back of an enormous Anselm Kiefer painting that is on extended display, following his big show here last year.
As mentioned, it is hard to get a clean shot at Art In Bloom, what with the crowds. This one worked, and it might be one of my favorites.
Another from Art In Bloom at the St. Louis Art Museum (which has the wonderful URL slam.org). This is in a room of Baroque paintings; the one the floral arrangement is based on is off to the left of the frame.
I may need to stick with flowers until we head out of town late this week. This weekend brought us the annual Art In Bloom show at the St. Louis Art Museum. Top floral designers present pieces throughout the museum inspired by works in the collection. It gets crowded and hard to line up shots.
I went back to the next to last day of the orchid show yesterday. It was so crowded on Saturday that we made it about a third of the way through and left. Not so bad on a weekday. It was beautifully clear, which created interesting lighting opportunities in the glass walled and ceilinged gallery.
It is striking that something as complex as an orchid can come from a simple, symmetrical bud, or, in this case, a cascade of them. It makes for nice layers.
Orchids come in an astounding variety of shapes, sizes and colors. I'm no botanist (where I grew up the ground cover was cement and asphalt) but I've never seen anything like this. A sign said it was called something like a spider orchid. I don't think of spiders as curly and pink but what do I know. Looks to me roll-up candy.
Orchids share a basic morphology but come in lots of variations. The range at the Botanical Garden's annual show is bewildering. There is an equally wide variety of ways to photograph them. One approach is a trio with shallow depth of field.
A similarly shaped orchid with a different color scheme. I bumped up the saturation and contrast to see what would happen.
I don't know much about orchids other than that they are epiphytes and sometimes look, um, provocative. This looks like the same variety of flower as in yesterday's post, but with shoots and buds that I assume will become new blossoms.
Time for a change. The annual orchid show is nearing the end of its February run at the Missouri Botanical Garden. We wanted to get there in time but, on a clear winter Saturday, it was so crowded as to be unmanageable. The lumbar facet joints were complaining loudly so we got a third of the way through and decided to come back on a weekday - one of the benefits of being old. Still, got some decent images.
Another candid taken in the staging area of the Mardi Gras parade. Don't know what the faceted mirror ball is about but it looks cool. Time to get out on the street and find some new stuff. The orchid show is on at the botanical garden. The whole set of parade pictures beyond what was posted here is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobcrowe/albums/72177720332037623 .
I got a couple of decent street portraits at the Mardi Gras parade. This one shows how the drizzle dampened streets but not spirits. Speaking of which, she's not drinking alcohol. QT, Qwik Trip, is a chain of gas stations with big convenience stores. The contents of the cup are undoubtedly full of sugar.
Today marks the completion of my 76th orbit around the sun. Doing pretty well for that, still upright, taking pictures and flying. In March and April I'll hit seven countries (albeit some briefly) plus a plane change in an eighth. Don't slow down.
Anheuser-Busch used to be headquartered in St. Louis. Some years ago it was taken over or merged into the Belgian-Brazilian giant Inbev, which moved the North American headquarters to New York. Still, their biggest American brewery is here and it marked the end of the Mardi Gras parade route.
Another corporate headquarters lost to St. Louis. Still, it was announced yesterday that Boeing is moving its defense offices back here from a suburb of Washington. We were the HQ when it was McDonnell Douglas.
Krewe is a word taken from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, used to identify a social group that has a float or performs together in the parade. A long-standing and delightfully wacky local one is the Gateway Precision Lawn Chair Krewe. They perform close order drill with light folding lawn chairs. I caught them rehearsing on an empty parking lot.
Fredbird is the mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. He shows up at all sorts of public events, besides his duties at games. Here he is hanging out at a gas station along the parade staging area that is losing its sales for a half day. The men in black are members of the Shriners, a Masonic organization, who buzz around the streets in mini go-karts.
Do NOT send your arrows this way. You have to remember, though, that the Mardi Gras parade was held on Valentine's Day.
It was drizzling yesterday morning when I decided to take a chance and go downtown to check out the Mardi Gras parade. As one of our colleagues reminded me, there is no bad weather, just bad clothing. The parade's policy is to go on, rain or shine. I go early and work the staging area, where the participants ane milling around and everyone is happy to pose.
Today, Saturday, is supposed to be our Mardi Gras parade. The organizers claim it is the second biggest in the U.S., after New Orleans. But they have several over a few days and we just have the one shot. The forecast is for rain all day but, from what I know, the parade isn't canceled. The organizers couldn't afford to lose all sales at their party tents. So the usual mass swilling on the street will be washed away.
Another dog dressed as a movie character. It certainly has the right face. I don't think earthly pups or their interstellar cousins drink Busch beer, though.
The big Mardi Gras parade is scheduled for tomorrow but it's supposed to rain most of the day. Don't know how the organizers will handle that.
It has been noted in these pages that St. Louis likes an excuse to drink in public. That pastime was clearly on display on Sunday during the dog parade. It won't come close, though, to what you will see on the street next Saturday during the main Mardi Gras parade. Hoping the rain holds off.
And owners. I dress in dark colors when I'm shooting on the street to blend in. People in the dog parade tend to go in the opposite direction. I guess I'm more of a observer than a participant (and besides, we just have a cat). Somebody has to make the record.
Moving on from outdoor sculpture for a while. Lots of different material coming up because it's silly season in St. Louis (not that people take us very seriously). Mardi Gras is a big deal here. I think it started with community organizations but it's all commercialized now-still fairly crazy but orderly enough. Yesterday was the traditional dog parade, sponsored by Purina, the pet food company that is headquartered here. Lots of wacky puppies with owners to match.
Another piece by Igor Mitoraj downtown, but in a place with less traffic than Eros Bendato, seen here a number of times (https://tinyurl.com/nhj8hufr). It's called Torso Di Ikaro, Torso of Icarus, and I find it puzzling. It looks to be neither flying or crashing to earth, although the six-pack abs are ready for great effort. The hollow and its shell could become a balloon, ready to challenge the sun in a way a whole body could not. There is a bit of discussion at https://racstl.org/public-art/torsi-di-ikaro/ .
This picture was taken yesterday, Friday. By the time you see this post the sculpture will probably be gone from the site. Synergism by William Conrad Severson and Saunders Schultz has sat at this corner downtown for 50 years (some background at https://racstl.org/public-art/synergism/). It is a mirrored stainless steel cube within a cube within a cube, playing wonderful visual tricks with its surroundings. There was an article in yesterday's newspaper, https://tinyurl.com/2zkx6um5, stating that it is being removed today for extensive restoration. At a later date it will be reinstalled in a park in the nether suburbs. Another loss for downtown.
Mariposas, butterflies in Spanish. This unusual work is found on the side of the Central Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, a wonderful building worth exploring for its own sake. It seems like a perfect metaphor for the wonders of reading. Now, if I could only get my granddaughter's face out of the Roblox screen , , ,
Big Brother may actually be watching you. We in the United States have reason to worry about such things these days. Tony Tasset's Eye at Laumeier Sculpture Park could have cameras embedded in it for all we know. Keep your head down.
One more by Harry Weber. Actually, this is just across the river in East St. Louis, Illinois. Malcolm Martin was a corporate lawyer in a big firm. My tiny firm was in the same building so I saw him around on occasion. He was successful, never married and wanted to do some good with his money. The land directly across the Mississippi from the Arch was vacant. Martin wanted to establish a viewing point for the river, Arch and downtown, preserved for the public. His bequest made it happen. It's a wonderful place.
This is an old picture. The object behind Martin is a one of many sculptured cakes marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis.
Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan. In his later years he lived with family in a compound on the edge of the area. He frequently performed in a small space in the basement of locally famous Blueberry Hill, a bar and restaurant across the street from this statue. The performance venue was known as The Duck Room, after Berry's signature walk.
This is another work by Harry Weber. I knew him slightly since he asked to use my picture of another of his statues (see tomorrow) in a book about his stuff. He said he would send me a copy of the book. He didn't. Nobody ever does. (Talking about you, Museum of Modern Art.) What Weber did do is get me into the private reception for Berry at Blueberry Hill, resulting in this picture - https://tinyurl.com/cdce9hhh .
A sculpture by Harry Weber, whose work is all around here, called The Captains' Return. It depicts Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returning here in 1806 after their two-year so-called voyage of discovery, all the way up the Missouri River and then into Oregon. A bit about the work (with a really terrible photo) at https://www.nps.gov/places/the-captains-return.htm. The statue used to be a bit upriver and lower down on the levee, where it would sometimes be inundated (https://tinyurl.com/y6mww2js). The explorers probably would not want to come through today's icy Mississippi.
Masked double self-portrait, mirror maze, St. Louis Union Station. City Daily Photo members around the world do it in pairs at https://citydailyphoto.org/category/theme-days/ .
Another one by Richard Serra, Joe at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Yes, Joe is Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., the late publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Serra's friend and patron. It is in a courtyard, not visible from the street, but its huge size (13.5 feet, 4 meters tall, spiraled inward) makes its physical presence all the more impressive. You can see a view from above at https://pulitzerarts.org/collection/ (scroll down a bit).
Richard Serra's Twain is a controversial work. It's big, 12 foot / 3.7 meter slabs of semi-rusted Cor-ten steel taking up most of a city block. When it was installed in 1981 there was a huge negative reaction (something Serra is no stranger to). I love it, but it is a pretty intellectual concept. There is a helpful discussion at https://racstl.org/public-art/twain/ .
Or Zenit in the original Italian. Mimmo Paladino's work is placed on a wooded rise in Citygarden, a very tall stylized horse with a solid shape on its back called a stellated dodecahedron, a star-shaped form with twelve faces, one point sharply in the animal's back. I think it's spooky.
Often seen here, the statue of the Apotheosis of St. Louis in front of the art museum in Forest Park. The streets are clear now but the ground is still snow covered and it's staying cold for awhile.
Well, I guess it's sculpture of a sort. T Tex here and a triceratops, just out of the frame to the right, stalk Forest Park beside the planetarium. A quick look online suggests that the monster's habitat was subtropical forests and plains in what is now the western U.S. and Canada. It probably wouldn't like our current weather (it was cold-blooded, after all). It is still frigid here but the sun was out Monday and the streets are clear.
We got a lot of snow over the weekend by our standards, maybe 9 inches / 23 cm. The temperature forecast for Sunday night is -5 F / -20.5 C, frigid to us. Under the circumstances, I thought I'd bring back a chilly picture of Citygarden's other Pinocchio statue (we have two!), Jim Dine's Big White Gloves, Four Big Wheels. I'm not so welcoming of the conditions.
