SOME COLOR, AT LEAST

I've been complaining (and boring you) for some time about how dull things are around here, how little there is to shoot. Leaden skies, temperature hovering around freezing but no snow. Blah. So I go out cruIsing.  

This sign is a local landmark. Versions of it (neon in the past) had been around before I showed up here for college in 1967. All St. Louisans know it. It is on a hilltop and coming down Clayton Road or I 64 you can see it from far away. The Amoco brand has almost disappeared. It has a complicated history, now being pretty much merged into BP (which most Americans don't know means British Petroleum).  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoco                 

AT THE END OF THE FOREST CLEARING

There's a metaphor in here somewhere, something about what is happening to us at the edge of the wilderness. This is actually a local landmark at a gas station that has been at this location for many decades. The original enormous sign was formed with neon. What you see here is a modern reproduction, sort of like the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square, Boston. The view is through the trees in the southwest corner of Forest Park.

The Amoco brand doesn't exist on gas stations any more. This one pumps BP products. I wonder how many Americans know that stands for British Petroleum.          

Fossil Fuels

We don't go on many road trips but today is the start of an annual trek. We drive to Marysville, Kansas, for Thanksgiving weekend, leaving this afternoon with an overnight stop in Kansas City. Dinner at our favorite KC restaurant with Emily, Brian and Madeleine. On to the town where my my wife's mother lives on the morning of the holiday and straight back on Sunday. 400 miles/644 km each way. Elvira Kruse's birthday is right after Thanksgiving. She will be 95 this weekend.

The sign in the picture is a St. Louis landmark. It's been there with a couple of design changes for decades, even though BP (British Petroleum) took over Amoco (American Oil Company) some years ago. It looks bigger in person than it does in the photograph. The view looks west on Clayton Road from Skinker Boulevard at the southwest corner of Forest Park.